Recruiting is fully in the digital age, and key statistics can help drive more qualified candidates to your jobs. Digging deeper into the numbers, we can even raise the odds that top talent accept your job when offered. Here are a few of the most important pieces of information we have found, and how you can use them to improve your recruiting strategy.
53% of Millennials conduct their job search on mobile ¹
This isn’t surprising. We shop for everything else on our phones, why not jobs? In order to reach the most applicants both company employment pages, and initial applications need to be mobile optimized. Talk to your IT department about making sure your employment application of job description aren’t framed on your website (this is when another page is implanted on your website, usually shown in a framed box). Framed portions of pages do not render well on mobile devices, making it hard for potential candidates to navigate the job info and application page.
There is a 90% drop-off of applications when using full applications as opposed to short apps ²
Consider carefully whether to use a full application, typically 45 questions or more, or a short initial form to collect contact info. Job boards, like Indeed, are catering to mobile users lessening the amount of information needed to be entered to apply to a job. Filling out long forms, requesting work and education data, is frustrating on mobile devices. Most candidates just move on to other employment postings, rather than go through completing a onerous number of fields. Keep your application form on your website and job boards at 10 questions or less and maximize the number of people that apply.
69% of our top candidates state that company reputation impacts their decision to apply, or accept a job ³
Many companies view the recruiting process as a just filtering out the people you do not want and picking a winner. In truth the most important part of recruiting is getting the person you want to also want to work for you. The number one deciding factor the best candidates use to select a company to apply for and accept a job is reputation. This is the company’s online reputation, and what past customers and employees say about interacting with the business. A best practice to is include testimonials from happy customers, customer satisfaction survey data, and community involvement such as charity work. Incorporate these into your employment page, and use them as bullet points in your employment ads.
84% of people presently working and job hunting state they will switch jobs for a company with a better reputation ¹
If you have been wracking your brain trying to figure out how to get experienced employees at your competitors to apply to your company you have the answer. Job seekers are looking for more than income. They want the fulfillment of being part of a successful team. One that people want to do business with, and is a part of their community. Make your customer satisfaction data part of your sales and employment ads. Put your best foot forward on the home page of your website. Many job seekers visit your company site, on top of your employment page. Let them see that they will be a part of an organization that knows how to make people happy. Satisfied customers usually means great workplace.
A few last best practices to master digital recruiting:
- Use an ATS (applicant tracking system) to collate information and communicate with candidates. The information you collect over time can help predict what candidates will be successful in your company, and how to market to them.
- Make sure any ATS or vendor you use gives you full access to your candidates and data. Only do business with someone that will allow you to export your information if you stop using them. You never know what information you collect today might tell you in the future. It could be years later, long after you stop using a vendor, and the data you have might become relevant.
- Test your website, and job ads on mobile devices. Take applying to your jobs out for a test drive. Ensure that images and fields line up the way they should and are easy to complete.
- Enter results from all of your interviews in your ATS. Save them for later scrutiny. If you have lots of people applying and aren’t hiring, the answer is probably in your interviews. You cannot analyze them if they aren’t stored.
- Avoid vendors that use your candidate information for their own purposes. Look for a guarantee that your data is secure and separated and will not be shared in any way. In particular do not let recruiters offer outside positions for other clients to your candidates. You are paying your recruiter, or vendor to do more than hunt for employees. They are responsible for curating and protecting the data you paid them to get.
Best of luck hiring your winning team. Contact us for more info on building a recruiting program. Unlike other staffing companies we specialize in helping our clients build recruiting programs for themselves, and completely operate on their behalf.
¹ – Glassdoor survey of job seekers, 2016
² – Indeed survey of job seekers, 2016
³ – Recruitment HQ survey of applying candidates, 2017