While looking at your current employees and their referrals is a strong way to fill open positions, many times external applicants are going to make up a large percentage of your applicant pool. So how can you best attract these applicants to your company, and once there, how can you make sure to build a relationship with those applicants? And what is the downside if you don’t get this right?
Attracting Applicants
When it comes to getting applicants to visit your career center and apply to jobs, you cannot just rely on the job description to get them through the door. There are many other factors that you need to consider to make sure that it is easy for applicants to learn about your company and find a job that interests them.
First, make sure you are advertising your jobs in the right places to attract the right applicants. This could include local universities, job board, social media, the newspaper or emails to previous applicants. Every company may have a different strategy on how to best get information about your jobs out there – take a look at where your previously successful hires have come from and start from there to attract similar applicants.
Also, don’t assume a one-size-fits-all approach with your career center. Different applicants have different needs, and your career center needs to cater to those. Be able to direct applicants to corporate jobs to a career center specific to those jobs, and do the same for your hourly workforce. By breaking this up, you make it easier for applicants to find jobs that they are looking for and qualified for, and improve their user experience.
Finally, don’t forget to make your site mobile friendly. According to Beyond (http://about.beyond.com/infographics/mobile-job-search-apps) 77% of job seekers use mobile devices to search for jobs. So, if your career center doesn’t support this capability, you might end up missing out on some really good applicants.
Application Experience
Once you’ve made your jobs easy to find and learn about, make sure it is easy for applicants to apply. The process, the rules, the requirements – it is important that each one of these items is clear and easy for the applicant to follow.
Over the years, one of the number one complaints I hear about the application process is that it is too hard, too long, and too repetitive. Really evaluate your current process and get rid of the things you don’t need. If you are asking every applicant to submit a cover letter, but you never read it, remove it from the application. Having extra steps that don’t provide value to your or the applicant just makes the process longer and increases the odds that the applicant won’t finish.
Communication and Follow Up
Feedback to your applicants is one of the best ways to ensure you develop a good relationship with potential talent. After someone applies to a job, it is really important that regular updates are provided throughout the entire hiring cycle. Whether it is good news that you are reaching out for an interview, or the more dreaded news that they aren’t qualified for the opening, applicants need to be apprised of the status of their application.
Also, you may have heard of the resume black hole, and you probably know this isn’t a good thing. Providing follow up and communicating with applicants can help alleviate this issue, which is so prevalent that there are many articles and videos on how to avoid the black hole.
So What If You Don’t?
The cost of dissatisfied applicants is more than them giving up and looking elsewhere – it can leave applicants with a negative perception of your company as a whole. Whether the process is too rushed, too slow, or lacks any meaningful feedback, there are repercussions with how that potential applicant views the company, and whether or not they will share their experience with their friends or elsewhere on the internet. And don’t forget that studies have shown that job seekers are less likely to buy or use services from a company that is unresponsive when they apply to work there.
Posting jobs and hiring new employees can be a huge time investment, making it a big disappointment when your favorite candidate doesn’t accept the offer or leaves after being on the job for only a short time period. There can be many underlying reasons for this shock to the system, and one thing that it helps to keep in mind is that your hiring processes cannot always be a “one size fits all” tool. Your candidates may come from many different sources and backgrounds, and how you interact with them during the hiring process can influence their decisions to join or stay at your company long-term.
This blog series will focus on several different groups of candidates and considerations for working with those groups. For example:
How can you attract external candidates to apply to your openings?
How might you adjust the hiring process to meet the unique needs of candidates referred by your current employees?
Are there any special ways to keep in touch and market new job opportunities to respected alumni?
How can you get and keep the attention of the millennial workforce?
How can you make applying to jobs fast and easy for hourly workers?
Over the next couple of months, join us as we provide some best practices when accounting for the diverse needs of today’s workforce. Our focus will be on the candidate sources below, and we would be happy to receive further suggestions from our readers on additional groups you might like us to focus on.
We know you are very busy and our goal when you contact Support is to get your case to resolution as quick as possible so you can get back to other work activities. We launched our Customer Care Connect website in April and wanted to make sure you are aware of the latest resources available to help you get things done!
The Customer Care Connect Site
The Deltek Customer Care Connect site (https://customercare.deltek.com) requires you to login with your individual username and password. If you don’t remember your password, simply click Account Assistance on the login page and follow the instructions. You will find a quick Connect Site overview video on the Home page to give you a brief tutorial of the site. Access the Connect site to:
Log new cases and manage existing cases
Use Enterprise Search to access our Knowledge Base and Release Documentation
Connect with other Talent Management users on our Customer Forums
Submit product enhancement requests
Direct escalation to Support management
Quick Chat with Support Available Now!
We are excited to announce that as of August 8, 2016, Talent Management customers now have access to Quick Chat on the Customer Care Connect support website. Use Quick Chat to get answers to general questions from our Support team. For more complex questions, please log a case via the Submit Case page and you will receive a prompt reply.
Support Escalation Widget
If you have submitted a case with Support and it hasn’t been handled to your satisfaction, you are encouraged to contact the Customer Care Support Management team directly through our Escalation form now available on the Connect site Home page.
Customer Forums
Engage with literally thousands of Talent Management users and experts in the Customer Forum on the Customer Care Connect site. This space is dedicated to conversations around best practices, tips and tricks, etc. Feel free to jump in to interact with the community!
Contacting Customer Care Support by Phone
The phone number for Authorized Support Contacts to contact Support is 1-877-HLP-PROJ or 1-877-457-7765. Please be sure that you have your unique 6 digit individual contact ID when calling Customer Care. When you provide your Contact ID, our average speed to answer is under 2 minutes! If you do not have your Contact ID you can find it on your Home page on the Connect site in the upper right hand corner under your name.
Your Satisfaction is Our Top Priority
You may receive a survey request from your Support interaction. We read all survey comments and greatly appreciate your feedback!
If you have questions about the Deltek Customer Care Connect site itself contact CC Ops Help.
Please remember to add Deltek (DeltekSupport@deltek.com and deltek@more.deltek.com) to your safe sender’ list in your email settings or spam filter to make sure you receive updates from our Customer Care support team.
Feedback is a critical component to motivating your workforce. According to a recent study by AccentureTM, providing frequent, direct performance appraisals ranks in the top 5 ways to engage your employees*. A technology solution that facilitates this process by providing ongoing access to documented expectations, departmental objectives and goals, and a location where employees can log their achievements and challenges reinforces to employees that they are an important part of the organization’s success.
With a full understanding of factors that drive your top performers, you are able to ensure they have access to the career development opportunities they require. Top performers are often career driven, willing to go the extra mile to remain on the path to success. With Brilliant HR Performance solution in place, they can identify their career goals and share them with their managers. Managers then have the information they need to keep them engaged in their work and productive at your company.
In case you missed it, last month Brilliant HR | Deltek released the new information book, Talent Management for Dummies, Special Edition.
Talent Management for Dummies details how an effective talent strategy can impact your company’s success. People are the greatest asset in your organization. Managing employees through the entire employee lifecycle, from hire to retire, is the key to attracting and retaining the best talent.
Talent Management for Dummies will help you:
Understand the concepts of an effective “people” strategy
Learn how to use technology to acquire, develop and retain top employees
Accelerate the human performance of your organization to the next level
The components of a robust talent strategy are broad-reaching, touching all facets of your business. The talent war is on, but it isn’t too late to play on the winning side by developing and implementing an effective talent plan. Download your copy of the book here.With the release of the book, we also kicked off the first of a five-part informational webinar series. In Deltek’s first educational installment of the series, Win the War for Talent, attendees began the journey to understand the talent management components that will help their organizations win the war for talent, including:
Understanding the challenges of a multi-generational workforce
The importance of aligning your talent management strategy to your business strategy
Why companies who are winning the war for talent are embracing technology to help them be competitive
To listen to the recorded webinar, click here. Make sure to register for the remaining webinars in the series as well!
June 16 – Finding Qualified Talent Fast
July 21 – Retaining Top Talent
August 9 – Investing in Your People
September 14 – Leveraging Technology to Manage Talent