5 recruitment tips to help combat talent shortages

There are certain strategies hiring managers can implement to get the most out of their recruitment activity.

Tech company Atlas recently hosted Recruitment and Talent Acquisition Strategies in a Tight Labour Market, a webinar where experts discussed how to navigate recruitment amid talent shortages.

Ben Townshend, senior account manager at Bluefin Resources, gave his five areas to focus on when trying to up your recruitment game.

“It’s well documented the last couple of years have been really tough [for recruitment]. A recent study that I saw, [average hiring times] changed from 30 days in 2020 to now 52 days is the average time to hire, which is a massive change,” Mr Townshend said.

“What strategies can we implement to try and help? I suppose attract great talent, and there [are] so many different things that you can implement within your business. But I’ve put together five key areas that I think are good places to start.”

1. Ensure a positive candidate experience

Providing a positive experience for candidates will keep them happy and help attract others.

“This is, without question, the number one thing. If you’re going to focus on anything, you have to focus on a good candidate experience. Not only is it going to enable you to hire great people, it also can do massive damage to your brand, if you don’t focus on this,” Mr Townshend said.

Mr Townshend said that it’s important to move candidates through the hiring process quickly, but also provide an adequate number of interviews to ensure the applicants are getting enough face time.

“The less time it takes you to move candidates through your interview process, the more likelihood you’ve got of being able to get them on board,” he said.

He continued: “One problem that we’ve seen is other companies have been so focused on reducing the amount of interviews that whilst they can move on candidates quickly, candidates are actually dropping out quite often during that period of accepting the offer before they start.”

Automated feedback is also important as it can identify issues with the process for you to correct.

2. Maintain employer branding and referrals

Having a solid online presence is crucial in modern times, said Mr Townshend. Employees can help with this by being active on social media.

“Companies that get it right, you save half the battle if you have a good online presence … Anything that’s going to sell your culture. So that could be a picture of sales kick-off, it could be a meet-up you did, it could just be a charity that some of the team are doing. Anything that you can put up … can really go a long way and just help you access that passive market, rather than just being reliant on adverts,” Mr Townshend explained.

“A lot of companies are now pushing for your actual staff to be more vocal on LinkedIn. This can be amazing for your brand because people who are really good at it are probably not realising, but they’re selling the business as well.”

3. Partner with specialist recruiters

Mr Townshend said: “We see so many clients that make this mistake of where they work with a company that’s a jack of all trades, and they have them fill in all roles, and you just shoot yourself in the foot.

“When there [are] lots of candidates, fine, they may be able to find people. But if it’s a tight labour market, you need someone who knows the market, access to passive talent and can fill roles quickly.”

4. Invest in technology

Tech is a great way to streamline processes, ultimately improving productivity.

“[Automation] is an absolute game changer, especially if you’re in a talent acquisition function ... What it enables you to do is basically automate reaching out to your passive talent,” Mr Townshend said.

Video interviewing and ATS systems are also great ways to improve your hiring experience and save time and resources.

5. Hire overseas talent

Utilising global talent may be beneficial to your business.

Mr Townshend commented: “One of our clients, for example, they’ve just hired a team of five in the Philippines [for their] software engineering function, and that they’ve saved on recruitment fees. So, your typical recruitment fee here for a developer would probably be 25 to 30k. In the Philippines, it’s a fraction of that, probably a third.”

Salaries are also lower in some countries, and according to Mr Townshend, hiring times can also be reduced. Not only that but your diversity in the company is increased.

“That time to hire, our average is probably about 30 days when we’re hiring overseas, which is pretty good compared to the 52 [days in Australia],” he said.

To watch Atlas’ full webinar, click here.