The recruitment landscape is changing rapidly, especially since the pandemic. We’ve seen a rise in automation software and job platforms, all promising to streamline how we find and vet candidates. But here’s the thing: it’s not always clear when these alternative recruitment strategies are the right fit for your business.
Finding the right recruitment method for your company can be a game-changer. It can help you bring skilled professionals on board while keeping your budget in check. Pretty neat, right?
So, why consider stepping away from traditional recruitment? Two main reasons:
- Cost-saving: A good strategy helps you target your resources effectively. It’s about optimizing your time and getting new hires up to speed quickly, which can really boost your team’s productivity.
- Better talent: Here’s an interesting fact – about 70% of the global workforce isn’t actively job hunting. With an innovative approach, you can attract these passive candidates who might be perfect for your team.
At DistantJob, we’ve seen how the right recruitment strategy can transform a business. It’s not just about filling positions – it’s about building a team that can take your company to the next level.
Ready to explore some alternative recruitment strategies? Let’s dive in and see how we can improve your hiring process.
1. Change How They Write Job Descriptions
They say actions mean more than words, but in job adverts, words are everything.
Job descriptions are the beginning of your recruitment process. Depending on where they are published, most are viewed by hundreds of people. But if you choose the wrong words, you’ll likely scare many talented potential candidates.
What do we mean by ‘wrong words’? A study conducted by the University of Waterloo and Duke University analyzed how gender wording in job advertisements promoted gender inequality. One of their findings was that most job descriptions are written with masculine words—such as dominant, leader, and competitive, among others—that make women less likely to apply to the job.
If your company is trying to promote diversity and gender equality, it’s time to examine the best practices for writing job descriptions and applying them to your own.
2. Remote Hiring
How is hiring remote employees an alternative recruitment strategy?
Remote recruiting is on the rise. There are many reasons why companies benefit from hiring remote employees. Remote hiring brings benefits to employers and employees alike.
Employees who have children can spend quality time with them while working full time in the comfort of their homes. Young people who seek adventure and live in different places with flexible jobs can pay their traveling bills and work full-time at cafés or workspaces.
According to Gallup, 54% of office workers say they’d leave their current jobs for ones that offer flexible work time.
When candidates analyze job descriptions and overall job opportunities, they consider aspects such as job position, compensation, and career growth. And nowadays, flexibility is a significant factor that leads candidates to apply for or reject a job. So, offering flexibility and remote work is a major advantage that your company will have when competing with other companies to attract and recruit the best talent worldwide.
Think about this: One lesson companies have learned from the COVID-19 pandemic is that remote work works. Most employees who faced this transition don’t want to go back to the office; they want freedom and flexibility.
Look Beyond The Resume
CV’s are the golden ticket to getting a job most times. Suppose you went to an excellent college, got good grades, and achieved a great professional career. In that case, you’ll have more opportunities than those who went to a medium-range college and had few job opportunities.
This is not entirely wrong because you need a certain level of education, experience, and the necessary skills to obtain a job.
But, what is wrong is disqualifying applicants because they didn’t attend Ivy League colleges or have minimal working experience.
One of the best recruitment strategies we’ve learned as tech recruiters is to go beyond CVs. Personality and soft skills are equally important.
Picture this hypothetical situation: You have two candidates. John and Bob. John went to an Ivy League university and has built a great professional trajectory. On the other hand, Bob went to a regular college and only had one job before applying to this one. You hire John because of its amazing CV, to later find out he can’t take feedback and he hates teamwork.
Sounds familiar? – If you haven’t experienced this type of situation, you’re lucky. Many companies prioritize the CV, and the so-called ‘hard skills’, and forget about the soft skills and personality traits.
3. Social Platforms
Social media is the modern way of recruiting talent. Why? Because there are approximately 4.57 billion internet users! One of the most effective strategies for modern recruitment is posting job ads over social media. If your company uses LinkedIn, one of the recruitment most common hotpots, there’s a good chance many candidates postulate for the job. LinkedIn is a great way to recruit candidates but is not the only option.
Using social media as an alternative recruitment strategy is all about being wise and knowing where to post your job ads. For instance, if you are looking for juniors or people with less professional experience, LinkedIn might not be the place for you. Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter might be the platforms that will help you reach out to this type of audience.
It’s important to know your key audience and what social media platforms they use the most. For example, McDonald’s changed their recruiting game, and they use ‘snaplications’ to reach out to a young audience. For example, Snaplications, are applications over Snapchat, one of the most popular social media platforms for teenagers.
4. Offer the Chance to be Part of Something Bigger
When people, especially young people, are offered the opportunity of working at big companies such as Google or Facebook, they do not think twice. Why? Because these types of companies are known to have a good culture, besides offering good compensation.
Be the company that whenever someone hears the name, they say, “I would do anything to have a job there’’. Obviously, this is more of a long-term strategy because it doesn’t happen overnight, but one thing is for sure if you foster a great culture, your employees and the people close to you will do the job for you. You can’t go wrong with this recruitment strategy.
You can record a video showing what it’s like to work at your company. If it’s a remote company like ours, you can explain how exciting it is to have a flexible schedule.
5. Consider Past Candidates
If you have been running your company for a while, you have a pool of candidates from previous open positions. Screening past applications is an optimal strategy to target your search. For example, a few months ago you hired a front-end developer to manage your team. Back then, you rejected a few candidates because they had more experience with UX design than web development. Now, you need to improve your user interaction features. Instead of opening a new position for UX designers, you can direct contact past candidates offering an interview for this new position. In this case, considering past candidates is one of the best alternative recruitment strategies to save your time and resources
6. Share Your Ad On Specific Websites
Most open-source software and programming languages have dedicated forums and websites for developers. When hiring a developer, it’s always a good strategy to share the job position on dedicated websites and tech centers. Often, local tech centers organize meet-ups and workshops on specific tools or coding languages. So, you can also check these types of events and forums based on the specific skills you need. And share your job ad directly to the community of developers you want to reach. In this case, you can check references in the community and speed up the hiring process.
The Best Alternative Recruitment Strategy Is To Let Professionals Do The Work for You
Implementing employee recruitment techniques can be a long process. It requires writing a good job description, looking for candidates in the right places, interviewing, and many other aspects that take a lot of time and energy. But seeking alternative recruitment strategies is part of your job as a team leader to grow your team and company with a unique talent.
We live in the era of working remotely, and therefore, hiring remote employees is getting more common than ever. But, if you think it’s too much work, we could give you a hand. As a remote recruitment agency, we have helped many companies hire the tech talent they were looking for.
We have our formula based on looking for talented candidates who also understand a company’s processes and culture besides having excellent tech abilities. All of this in less than two weeks. Sounds good as an alternative recruitment strategy? Go to our hiring page now!
