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How to Turn Rejections into Opportunities

Turning a candidate rejection into a brand-building opportunity is an art, and we’ve gathered insights from top professionals, including Global Employer Branding Specialists and HR managers. From inviting rejected applicants to join a talent community to personalizing rejections with respect, explore the valuable strategies they’ve successfully implemented.

Invite to Join Talent Community

Rejections should never be seen as a closed door. Rather than positioning the rejection as a dead-end, it’s best to reframe the communication in a way that encourages a candidate to apply for future roles.

One practical example is to invite rejected candidates to join your company’s talent community or subscribe to newsletters. Provide applicants with exclusive content, early access to job postings and insights into the company culture. Keeping applicants engaged ensures the organization remains on their radar for future opportunities and helps maintain a positive image.

A rejection today can lead to a successful hire tomorrow. It’s all about transforming setbacks into stepping stones for growth. By reframing your communications in a positive light and pointing to future opportunities, you can still maintain lasting relationships with talent without negatively impacting your employer brand.

Grant Smith
Global Employer Branding Specialist

Offer Constructive Interview Feedback

In our organization, we make it a point to offer constructive feedback to candidates who reach the final stages of the interview process but aren’t selected. This feedback is specific to their interview performance, highlighting strengths and areas for improvement.

We ensure that this communication is empathetic and encouraging, leaving candidates with a positive impression of our company and a clear understanding of how they might improve for future opportunities.

Kimberley Tyler-Smith
VP of Strategy and Growth, Resume Worded

Maintain Hopeful Communication

As an HR professional, ensuring a positive experience for all candidates—seeking feedback post-rejection or not shortlisted—is vital for a strong employer brand and a robust talent pipeline.

In rejection emails, I always try to maintain a positive tone, highlighting that the decision is about fit for the role, not a reflection of the candidate’s abilities. This helps candidates grasp that their application is welcome for future roles as their experience and skills are valued, fostering a hopeful outlook.

Moreover, I encourage them to stay connected and apply for future roles through social media/job postings and also take steps to retain names in databases, especially those close to selection but not chosen. This allows for easy re-connection and cuts down time on sourcing, selection and discussions when positions align with their skills. While seemingly routine, its impact becomes evident over time, proving it to be an effective practice.

Divvya Desai
HR, NamanHR

Personalize Rejection with Respect

I believe in delivering rejection news with a personal touch. This means providing constructive feedback, thanking candidates for their time, and encouraging them to apply for future positions. By treating candidates with respect and empathy, we not only preserve their dignity but also leave a lasting positive impression about our agency.

A successful instance of this approach was with a candidate who wasn’t the right fit for a particular role but showed great potential. After a personalized rejection, I kept in touch, offering occasional industry insights and potential job leads. Months later, when a suitable role opened up, this candidate was not only willing but eager to reapply. They were hired and became one of our top performers. This experience underscored how thoughtful rejections can nurture a talent pipeline and enhance our brand’s reputation.

Shane McEvoy
MD, Flycast Media

Navigating AI Technology in a Human-Centric Profession

The rise of artificial intelligence (AI) has revolutionized how many businesses operate, leaving many unanswered questions about its impact in the workplace. AI has led to unprecedented technological advancements and automation. However, there are concerns about job displacement and privacy.

Today, talent acquisition professionals face the challenge of leveraging AI ethically to attract and recruit top talent. In the comprehensive guide, “AI in TA: Navigating a New Wave of Technology in a Human-Centric Profession,” RippleMatch dives into the critical questions surrounding AI history, application, safety and guidelines.

With a focus on Gen Z recruitment strategies and the potential of campus recruitment, this article will serves as a roadmap for talent professionals to harness the power of AI while making sure it enhances, rather than overshadows, the human touch that is crucial in the recruitment process. Plus, we’ll share best practices for AI safety and showcase real-world examples of AI audits. As we lean into 2024, check out the highlights below and download the full report to go into the new year with a strategy that embraces AI in a human-centric way.

The AI Landscape: Where are we now?

  • Artificial Intelligence (AI) has been studied academically since the 1950s, but recent advancements in computers and the internet have brought AI to the forefront.
  • AI systems have the ability to learn and improve on their own, making tasks faster and more efficient.
  • AI technologies like Natural Language Processing (NLP), Deep Learning and Machine Learning (ML) are enhancing everyday products and services.
  • Examples of AI in everyday life include voice assistants, entertainment recommendations, translation apps, e-commerce recommendations, smart home devices, customer support bots and AI-powered job recommendations.
  • AI is also making an impact in mobility and logistics, with self-driving cars and ride-sharing apps utilizing AI for route optimization and automation.

Striking the Right Balance With AI in Recruitment

  • AI can be a powerful ally for talent acquisition professionals, automating administrative tasks and expanding reach, freeing up recruiters to focus on authentic human elements of the job.
  • AI tools assist in crafting job descriptions, strategizing employer brand messaging, and generating employer branding material.
  • AI sourcing tools actively scan professional networks to identify and reach out to potential candidates, building a talent pool.
  • When considering AI recruitment tools, transparency, diverse data, third-party validation, vendor responsibility, compliance assurance, human oversight and ethical considerations should be taken into account.

AI in Early Career Recruitment

  • The traditional playbook of early career recruitment, which relied heavily on-campus recruitment, was disrupted by the COVID-19 pandemic, leading to a shift toward virtual recruitment strategies.
  • Virtual recruitment has many benefits, including a more diverse pool of candidates, decreased costs and increased flexibility for interviews and opportunity discovery.
  • AI tools like RippleMatch result in a 70% reduction in time spent reviewing resumes, a 90% more diverse pipeline, and cut down the applicant review time to just five days.
  • Campus recruitment teams can use AI to redefine their strategies and make them more efficient, equitable and enjoyable through AI-powered platforms. AI helps automate sourcing and applicant review, allowing recruiters to focus on the best-fit candidates and prioritize response times, even for virtual and in-person events like career fairs.

Choosing Ethical AI: AI Safety

  • President Biden’s Executive Order highlights the importance of safe and trustworthy AI, emphasizing the need for rigorous evaluation of AI vendors.
  • Buyers should look for vendors that have concrete measures and a proven track record in upholding principles of privacy protection, bias mitigation, compliance and certification, security measures, transparency and accountability.
  • RippleMatch, an AI-native company in recruitment, prioritizes safety and trustworthiness and adheres to high standards of AI ethics and safety.

Key Takeaways for Integrating AI Into Your Team’s Workstream

  • Map out the recruitment process to identify tasks suitable for AI automation, such as candidate sourcing and initial communications, to free recruiters for personalized engagement and strategic planning.
  • Evaluate AI vendors based on their measurable results and depth of capabilities, including analytics, system integration, continuous learning and improvement.
  • Maintain a balance between AI-driven data insights and human judgment to ensure AI is always supporting, rather than replacing, the human elements of recruiting, such as cultural fit assessments and relationship-building.
  • Utilize AI-driven platforms for campus recruitment to analyze historical data, prioritize on-campus presence, and manage follow-up communications effectively. Additionally, use AI tools that prioritize diversity, equity, inclusion, and bias checks.
  • Stay updated on the evolving legal and ethical considerations of AI in recruitment to ensure compliance and respect for candidates’ privacy and rights.

Conclusion

The integration of AI in recruitment is inevitable. And luckily, it is poised to revolutionize the hiring process, making it more efficient and effective for recruiters and candidates alike. However, with this new technology comes responsibility and a need for a thorough evaluation of AI vendors.

For more in-depth details on how to implement AI into your recruitment strategy, get your free copy of the AI in TA: Navigating a New Wave of Technology in a Human-Centric Profession guide.

Before developing your early talent strategy for 2024, be sure you have the right knowledge and tools to effectively engage with the future of our workforce.

Engaging Active vs. Passive Candidates: Key Strategies

When companies are looking to hire, they come across two kinds of candidates—active and passive ones:

  • Active candidates are on a proactive quest for new job opportunities;
  • Passive ones, though employed and not actively on the job hunt, may entertain new opportunities if they arise.

It’s important to know the difference between active vs passive candidates because they need different approaches to get them interested in a job. This is something that helps in finding the right person for the job, which, in turn, helps the company do well.

The bigger chunk of people, about 70%, are not actively looking for a job but might be interested if the right job comes their way. This is a big group of people who could have the right skills and experience for your job openings, but they might be overlooked if companies only focus on those actively looking for a job.

Active job seekers are easy to find because they are the ones applying to jobs left and right. They are ready to jump into a new job right away. On the other hand, passive job seekers are not in a hurry. They are okay with their current jobs but might consider a change if something really good comes along.

Innovative Strategies to Engage and Attract Passive Candidates

Getting passive candidates interested needs a different way of doing things. They are not looking for jobs but might be open to a good offer. Here are some ways to get their attention and make them want to join your company:

#1. Building Employer Brand

“Over 57% of global leading organizations are prioritizing employer branding campaigns. Marketing activities significantly enhance hiring processes and decrease “Time per hire” indicator, but tracking their impact is challenging. Create global landing pages, write articles on web platforms, and highlight employee success stories. In talent acquisition, branding is no longer a choice; it’s a necessity.”

— Nelia Protsiuk, an expert in Global Talent Acquisition & HR Operations, pointed out.

Having a good employer brand can attract passive candidates. Showing your company’s culture and values lets them see what it’s like to work with you. Passive candidates like a company that shares their values and has a friendly work environment​​.

Sharing stories from employees who have done well in your company gives a real idea of what working with you is like. Also, using social media like LinkedIn, Facebook, and Instagram helps show your company culture and talk to passive candidates​​.

To further enrich your brand story, consider the use of a story idea generator. It might provide fresh perspectives or creative angles. It can aid in brainstorming sessions to come up with engaging narratives that reflect your company’s culture and values.

Additionally, an AI text generator can assist in fine-tuning the narrative, ensuring it’s well-articulated and resonates with potential candidates. These tools can streamline the process of crafting a brand story that effectively communicates what your company stands for and the experience it offers to its employees.

#2. Networking and Relationship Building

Making connections is key to reaching passive candidates. Talking to them in a real and friendly way, whether on social media or by email, starts a good relationship​​.

Keeping in touch with passive candidates over time builds trust​​. Networking is not just online. Going to events or having your own events and sharing digital business cards, also helps meet potential candidates in person​​.

#3. Personalized Outreach

Think of talking to candidates in a personal way. Knowing the candidate’s background and changing your message to suit them makes it personal. Being clear about why you are talking to them and what you are offering makes things clear.

If you’re doing email outreach, your email signature can play a role in personalizing your communication with candidates. For example, you can include a link to your LinkedIn profile, where they can learn more about your background and experience. You can also include a link to your company’s blog, where they can read about your company culture and values.

Also, asking about their career goals and showing how your company can help them reach those goals makes a good impression.

#4. Offering Flexible Work Options

Passive candidates might be happy where they are because of the work-life balance they currently have. Offering flexible work options could catch their interest. You could offer something like:

It shows that your company cares about the well-being of its employees and respects their time outside work. This way, even if they are not actively looking for a job, the flexibility your company offers might make them consider the opportunity you present.

Future Paths in Candidate Engagement

Finding the right people to hire is key for any company unless we are talking about a fully robotized factory.

Now you are well aware of the differences between active vs passive candidates. Quick recall: Passive candidates might be interested in your offer only if it outweighs their existing one, while active ones are the ones who should primarily meet the employer’s demand.

We discussed that understanding the different needs of these two groups can help in hiring:

  • For active candidates, making the application process easy and being active online are good steps.
  • For passive candidates, showing a strong company culture, networking and reaching out in a personalized way can help.

Also, let’s not forget about adding technology to our stack since it is right now becoming a big help. Tools like Applicant Tracking Systems (ATS) save time and help make better choices. Looking at candidate data and using automation also helps in connecting with candidates.

Another important moment is how you check and improve engagement strategies. Using key performance indicators (KPIs) and A/B testing are good ways to see if your strategies are working and to try new ideas.

“In shaping the future of candidate engagement, the recruitment team plays a crucial role. Their deep understanding of the business and familiarity with products and services form the foundation of an effective engagement strategy. In the changing landscape of talent acquisition, a knowledgeable recruitment team isn’t just a support function; it’s a strategic driver influencing a company’s growth and success.” — Nelia Protsiuk

Hiring is changing with more focus on connecting with candidates in a meaningful way. Going forward, connecting with both active and passive candidates in a good way will likely be important for hiring success.

The future of hiring seems to be moving towards a more personalized, data-driven and candidate-focused approach.

By adjusting to these changes and using the right strategies and tools, companies can find and hire the right people for their teams.

The Benefits of Temporary Staffing Solutions

There are many benefits that companies can gain when they hire temporary staff. In addition to an overall boost in the workforce, temporary staffing solutions often reduce the need for time-consuming administrative tasks such as payroll, pensions and various taxes. This can save businesses a considerable amount of time and energy, allowing companies to focus on business objectives.

According to DataHorizzon Research, the size of the temporary labor market was valued at $511.7 billion in 2022 and is expected to grow to $930.7 billion by 2032. This statistic applies to North America, Latin America, Europe, Asia Pacific and the MEA. However, the U.S. temporary worker industry is the largest in the world.

This substantial prediction of market size growth reveals unmistakable benefits for temporary staffing in companies, particularly in terms of cost savings, staff flexibility, and productivity. In this article, the discussion is based on some of the main benefits of temporary staffing from a company’s perspective.

A Large Talent Pool of Job Seekers

Companies often need additional employees beyond their permanent staff, particularly when there’s an increase in the workload. Also, busy times of the year, especially when there is specific work with a unique or technical purpose, tend to require extra specialized staff. In these times, temporary staffing solutions are an effective way to gain access to well-suited employees without committing to long-term contracts.

Enhanced Productivity

The productivity of a company can be increased considerably with the use of temporary staffing. By employing temporary staff, the workflow associated with time-consuming or specialized projects can be improved significantly, allowing permanent employees to concentrate their efforts on their core functions. Oftentimes, employees hired temporarily bring energy and new perspectives to the company, improving overall productivity and workflow.

Agility and Flexibility in the Workforce

Temporary staffing allows employers to expand or reduce the size of their workforce in relation to the existing circumstances. This aspect is beneficial for businesses that tend to experience fluctuations in demand. If permanent staff need extra help, even if it’s just for a short period of time, employers can use temporary staffing even though there may not be enough work to provide long-term employment. For example, if the scope of a project is suddenly altered, additional staff can be hired on short notice to help with the workload.

Reduced Employee Costs

Hiring temporary workers is generally less expensive than hiring full-time employees. The following list contains some of the typical cost savings companies experience when they hire temporary job seekers:

  • Operating costs such as those associated with recruitment, training, and employee benefits.
  • The costs of maintaining staff such as vacation, travel expenses, and benefits.
  • Costs mandated by government regulations such as workmen’s compensation, various taxes and social security deductions.

A More Efficient Hiring Process

Companies often benefit from hiring temporary candidates as interviewing processes and long waiting periods can be avoided. Furthermore, companies can hire staff temporarily to decide whether or not an employee is suitable for a permanent position. In contrast to conventional forms of employment, costs like recruitment expenses can be avoided as several job seekers can be temporarily hired before they’re hired permanently.

For companies needing staff at short notice, temporary staffing solutions enable job seekers to begin working immediately or within a few days, reducing the chance of disruptions in a company’s workflow. Companies can also save time as screening processes are completed before the employee is hired. In addition, companies have access to a network of talented job seekers, allowing them to find the right temporary staff quickly.

Temporary Staffing Reduces Hiring Risks

Hiring permanent staff can be an arduous and risky process for companies. By giving employers a chance to assess the performance of employees, they can make informed hiring decisions before committing to long-term contracts. Also, companies can evaluate an employee’s work ethic and skills to see if he or she has the potential to fit in well with the organization.

A Cost-Effective Employment Process

Utilizing temporary staffing solutions is cost-effective because an outsourced recruitment agency employs the workers instead of the business. Although employers are still required to pay a fee, the recruitment agency ultimately pays the wages of temporary staff. As a result, the total cost is usually lower than the amount you would have paid if you hired permanent employees, particularly after costs associated with hiring and training staff.

Better Employee Retention

Temporary staffing solutions give employers the ability to hire and observe full-time staff on a temporary basis which often improves employee retention. In other words, employers get an opportunity to know the employee and, in turn, the employee gets a chance to know the company. As a result, both employer and employee may become more confident that they’re a good fit, reducing the likelihood of staff turnover after the worker is hired permanently.

Uninterrupted Workflow

Temporary staffing solutions allow companies to maintain continuity during unexpected circumstances like staff resignation or long-term employee absences. Having access to staff on a temporary basis helps ensure that essential tasks are still accomplished with little or no disruptions. A continuous workflow enables companies to meet their business objectives and deliverables with a minimal impact on operations.

Better Customer Satisfaction

Companies that have experienced increased workloads may need their staff to take on additional work which can have adverse effects on staff morale. Additional workloads can reduce the overall satisfaction of permanent staff and even increase the likelihood of mistakes. This can negatively affect customer satisfaction. However, when companies are adequately staffed with enough permanent and temporary workers, employees are likely to be less stressed which generally has a positive effect on customer satisfaction.

Conclusion

Temporary staffing allows companies to benefit from various aspects that permanent staffing may not always offer. From access to a larger talent pool to better customer service, companies are more likely to succeed in competitive markets. By utilizing temporary staffing solutions, companies are better equipped to achieve maximum efficiency in their workforce, adjust to unforeseen fluctuations in demand and leverage growth opportunities. Overall, temporary staffing solutions allow businesses to thrive and achieve their objectives.

7 Ways to Use Social Media in Your 2024 Recruiting Efforts

In the evolving landscape of recruitment and retention, we’ve gathered insights from industry professionals, including marketing managers and recruiters, to share their strategies for leveraging social media in 2024. From collaborating with social media influencers to expanding TikTok recruitment strategies, discover the diverse ways these experts plan to enhance their talent acquisition and engagement efforts.

Showcase Real Company Culture

In 2024, our focus will revolve around showcasing our company culture and the real stories of our team members. We’re planning a series of “day in the life” features on platforms like LinkedIn and Instagram, where our employees share their experiences, challenges and the exciting parts of their work.

This strategy came from the understanding that potential recruits and current team members resonate more with authentic narratives rather than polished corporate messaging. It provides a transparent view of what it’s like to be part of our high-performing team.

Additionally, this approach fosters a sense of belonging and pride among current employees, aiding in retention. By leveraging these platforms, we’re not just attracting talent but also building a community that aligns with our values and vision.

Ankit Prakash
Founder, Sprout24

Share Candid Employee Videos

Our recruiting strategy for 2024 will showcase current employees sharing bite-sized video stories on social media—no scripts or polished productions. Just real people talking candidly about why they enjoy working at our company.

As Head of Growth, I want to pull back the employer branding curtain that hides the soul of a company. Aspiring engineers and data scientists can decide for themselves if our mission-driven, ego-checked culture feels like home before even applying.

This inside, no-filter view of life at Notta.ai hasn’t been done much in our space. But I believe sparking an emotional connection through transparency and authenticity will compel more talent who thrive in our environment to join the mission of making AI accountable and impactful.

Michael Chen
Head of Growth, Notta

Establish Employee Advocacy Programs

The ease with which social media postings by executives can assist recruitment efforts is among the most obvious advantages. Regardless of whether you are hiring, job seekers can learn more about your company’s culture and assess whether it’s a good fit for them by looking at your public profile as a leader.

Employee-generated content receives twice as many clicks as company-approved content. Furthermore, content shared by employees is perceived by users as three times more authentic than content shared on the business’ social media accounts.

You can and ought to establish an employee advocacy program for the entire organization, extending beyond the posts you and the other executives make on social media. According to research, organizations with official employee advocacy programs have a 20% higher chance of retaining top talent and a 58% higher chance of attracting them.

Axel Hernborg
Founder and CEO, Tripplo

Utilize LinkedIn for Recruitment

In 2024, we plan to leverage LinkedIn intensively for both recruiting and retention efforts. This platform stands out for its professional networking capabilities, allowing us to showcase our company culture, achievements, and open positions directly to a pool of professionals who have the skills and experience we value. We’ll use targeted content, such as employee testimonials, success stories and insights into our work environment, to attract potential candidates and engage our current team.

Additionally, LinkedIn’s analytics and recruitment tools will enable us to refine our hiring strategy based on real-world data. We chose LinkedIn for its unparalleled access to a wide range of professionals and its robust tools for fostering meaningful connections, making it an indispensable resource in our talent acquisition and retention toolbox.

Jaya Iyer
Marketing Manager, Teranga Digital Marketing LTD

Personalize Storytelling on Social Media

In terms of recruiting and retaining talent in 2024, my goal is to leverage social media, especially personalized storytelling. Authenticity is more important than ever in today’s ever-changing world. I will show off the “human side” of Travel-Lingual by sharing the stories of our team members—their experiences, struggles and successes.

Whether it’s a firsthand account of a team brainstorming meeting or a heartfelt testimonial from someone who just returned from a life-altering trip, these stories will make our brand shine. Why this strategy? In today’s job market, people seek a company with a mission and a culture that connects with them. When we humanize our brand on social media, we’re recruiting like-minded individuals and reinforcing our brand’s core values of transparency and authenticity. This isn’t about selling a job. It’s about inviting people to connect with something important.

In addition, this approach fosters community. Current team members feel proud to share and celebrate their stories, encouraging them to stay longer and be part of the team.

James Smith
Owner, Travel-Lingual

Expand TikTok Recruitment Strategy

I have been pleasantly surprised by the response to my expert HR advice that I previously posted on TikTok. This has motivated me to further expand my TikTok content and use it as a platform to recruit new talent.

While some professionals in my industry may view TikTok as a waste of time, they fail to realize the potential of reaching out to diverse communities, especially in the healthcare space. TikTok provides a free resource that can be utilized to share valuable content and engage with a wider audience. So, why not take advantage of this opportunity?

Alysia Straw, aPHR, SHRM-CP
Recruiter, Springfield Hospital

Collaborate With Social Media Influencers

Use social media influencers. Social media influencers can greatly affect the brand visibility of the company. Since almost everyone is already on social media, marketing campaigns are now usually conducted through these platforms.

A social media influencer can easily make your brand known if they vouch for your products and services. This is especially true if the influencer has a lot of social media followers. Hence, collaborating with social media influencers is much like paying for a TV ad in previous years. They are now the biggest celebrities who can easily influence their followers.

Omer Lewinsohn
General Manager & Marketing Expert, Management.org

Unlock Hiring Success: The Magic of AI-Powered Referrals

Artificial intelligence and machine learning systems are revolutionizing every industry in the world and will continue to transform the business world as we know it. In the recruitment industry, there are many ways that AI can make various crucial and menial processes more efficient and effective.

Artificial intelligence allows you to free up your talent acquisition team by automating various tasks, it can help recruiters with efficient prospecting and outreach, and much more. But when it comes to employee referrals, you might think that there’s not much AI can do for you. After all, it is an inherently human-led process, isn’t it?

Well, not anymore. Artificial intelligence might just be the next turning point in modern employee referral programs—a way for recruiters to achieve better results than ever before.

Let’s explore this topic and take a look at AI-powered employee referrals and how you can use the technology to take your company forward.

How Can AI Transform Employee Referral Programs?

Speed, accuracy and reliability should be some of the primary driving forces behind well-optimized employee referral programs. You not only want to bring in people who are a good fit for the team, but you also want to do it quickly so as not to leave the positions vacant for too long.

That said, speed can often come at the cost of screening quality, while unintentional bias can create an environment where people are recruited and promoted based on sentiment rather than hard data. Sometimes, you will get an employee that’s just right, but most of the time this will produce inefficiencies and cause a high employee turnover rate.

This is where AI-powered referrals come into play.

Using AI in the workplace to automate processes, eliminate biases, and ensure inclusivity is invaluable to modern recruiters, but it’s also important for effective onboarding and training. As you can imagine, this is a net positive on recruitment budgeting as well, as recruiters can manage their resources more efficiently throughout the process, while achieving better results.

The Role of AI-Powered Automation

Automating referral programs was nearly impossible up until a few years ago. Now that automation is taking over, business leaders can leverage specialized AI tools to automate parts of recruitment—employee referrals included.

Take LinkedIn, for example. In recent years, they have successfully implemented AI and machine learning into their operations. For example, the new AI-assisted job description creation can help companies and recruiters optimize their job listings faster and more accurately.

You can also make LinkedIn outreach more efficient by automating the process with the help of AI, enabling you to find the right candidates faster and with a higher degree of accuracy more easily.

Your employees can also use these automations to get in touch with their own referrals more efficiently and hand off the conversation to your recruiters after the initial point of contact. The result is a more streamlined, automated referral process that connects the right people with the company.

Eliminating Unconscious Bias

Unconscious bias is one of the biggest problems in modern-day recruitment practices, simply because it’s easy for companies to make these mistakes and thus drive talented people away.

From creating bias-free job descriptions to creating and managing referral programs that don’t harbor any bias towards any gender, ethnicity, or race, eliminating bias can be a difficult task. That said, AI systems can help spot and flag biased wording and behaviors in the workplace, especially in various recruitment programs.

One of the best ways to eliminate bias is through the use of AI knowledge management in the workplace, which can answer common interview questions in a standardized way, reducing the risk of unconscious bias in the hiring process. These systems have many uses, but when we’re talking about employee referral programs, they can help your team identify qualified candidates without being influenced by factors such as race, gender or age.

This creates a more streamlined and compliant recruitment process for the company.

Diversification and Inclusivity

Artificial intelligence can do much to help eliminate the problems of poor team diversification and a lack of inclusivity when it comes to referrals.

Employee referral programs that don’t control for inclusivity and diversification when bringing in new people can create homogenized workplaces. You need to ensure proper DEI practices to ensure employee engagement and team performance

On the other hand, homogenized work environments perform worse than diversified ones and negatively affect the employer brand as a whole.

With AI-driven analysis of employee referrals, you can quickly spot harmful patterns that hinder inclusivity and diversity in your organization, leading to a homogenized workforce. You can then use those insights to analyze these trends and uncover why these referrals lack these key DEI pillars.

Implementation and Optimization as a Team Effort

Last but not least, it’s important to remember that AI implementation requires the whole team to be involved, to spot inefficiencies in the system and respond to possible errors. No AI-driven system in recruitment comes ready to use “out of the box.”

Any system needs to be trialed, tested, and then optimized to fit organizational parameters. This can be a stressful process at first, but it’s important to stay calm and develop a troubleshooting process to eliminate bugs and train the system to fit your specific needs.

AI optimization is a team effort, and your recruiters and decision-makers need the feedback of all team members using the system so that they can analyze its performance and adapt. With that in mind, make sure to involve your employees in the testing phase.

Over to You

Artificial intelligence is helping recruiters and companies acquire talent faster than ever before, and it’s doing it in many key ways—employee referrals being one of them.

Up until the proliferation of artificial intelligence in the business world, creating and managing employee referral programs was a complex task, but AI is making it more efficient and effective. Now that you understand AI’s role here, you can go ahead and start implementing these systems in your own employee referral programs to acquire the right talent quickly.

Gamification in Interviews: 4 Lessons from Assessments

In the quest to enhance candidate engagement and refine the selection process, we’ve gathered insights from founders and Heads of Growth on integrating gamification into interviews. From using real-world IT problem-solving scenarios to revealing a candidate’s true skills through interactive games, discover the transformative effects in these four compelling strategies.

Real-World IT Problem-Solving Interviews

We’ve integrated live, broken environments into our IT assessments, providing candidates with real-world problem-solving scenarios reflective of daily engineering challenges. This approach not only ensures that successful candidates are ready to contribute from day one, but also enhances their overall experience.

Candidates often express appreciation for the gamified aspect, likening it to solving a puzzle rather than enduring a traditional interview. As an engineer myself, I understand the preference for hands-on, non-people-facing assessments. Even those who may not secure the position find value in the experience, viewing it as a valuable learning opportunity rather than a time-wasting exercise.

Our innovative hiring method also signals to candidates that we embrace forward-thinking approaches, fostering a culture open to inventive technology and outside-the-box ideas. This improves engagement and positions us as a company at the forefront of creative and effective hiring practices in the IT sector.

Maksym Lushpenko
Founder, Brokee

Interactive Games Assess Cultural Fit

We’ve introduced some gamified elements into parts of our interview process—things like collaborative puzzles or simulated customer scenarios. Our goal is to engage candidates and assess cultural fit, not just skills. These interview ‘games’ make the process more interactive and lower stress.

As a result, engagement is up, offers are more likely to be accepted, and new hires onboard faster and deliver impact sooner. It’s working—when the process is less robotic, we make better decisions on both sides.

Michael Chen
Head of Growth, Notta

Dynamic Process Enhances Candidate Engagement

I have introduced gamified elements into interviews to enhance candidate engagement. This approach transformed the interview experience into a more interactive and dynamic process.

Candidates demonstrated their skills and problem-solving abilities in real-time, leading to more authentic assessments. The gamification aspect significantly increased candidate engagement and provided deeper insights into their capabilities, aiding in more effective and informed selection decisions.

Eric Lam
Head of Business Strategy, Energy Credit Transfer

Gamified Interviews Reveal True Skills

We’ve embraced gamification in our interview process, and it’s been a game-changer. For instance, we introduced a real-time coding challenge, akin to a mini-hackathon, for our developer roles. This not only gauges technical skills but also highlights how candidates perform under pressure and collaborate in team settings.

The impact? Candidate engagement soared. Applicants found this approach more stimulating and insightful than traditional Q&A sessions. It fostered a sense of healthy competition and provided a more authentic showcase of their skills.

On the selection front, it’s been instrumental. This approach helps us observe candidates in action, going beyond what’s on their resumes. We’ve seen a significant increase in our ability to select candidates who are not just technically proficient but also culturally fit and collaborative.

Ankit Prakash
Founder, Sprout24

Building The Perfect Hiring Experience for Candidates

For all the ink being spilled in praise of all things “candidate experience,” the candidate experience is still pretty bleak, primarily because the experience can be boiled down to three simple steps: You apply, you wait with no information and you hope for the best.

No amount of “white glove service” has served to change that.

But as the world becomes more and more transparent, as expectations are shifting about how much information is available for even simple transactions, the candidate journey remains locked up tight by each company.

To solve this, we start by identifying the problems that need to be solved:

  • Lack of Transparency: There’s a really strong argument to be made that what made Uber such a great tool wasn’t that it added more ride options, but that it gave you a map to know exactly how long the wait would be and where your ride was. Not knowing creates uncertainty and that makes most people feel deeply uncomfortable.
  • Lack of Context: If you apply for a job, are you the first or last? How well do your base skills match up with other applicants? You can’t be mad that you didn’t get “the call” when you can clearly see that you only have six of the ten necessary skills and three people had all ten.
  • Lack of Perspective: To candidates, recruiters are gatekeepers. But that’s not how recruiters create value. Often, only they know if five people applied or five hundred. Only they know how many candidates were forwarded to the hiring manager and accepted or rejected.
  • Lack of Two-Way Communication: In 99.9% of cases, applications are effectively “tossed over the fence” to be considered as the are. Shouldn’t companies be able to simply ask the top ten candidates to offer more clarity or detail on a critical skill? Shouldn’t candidates have the ability to get more information about the process and add more information to their application?
  • Lack of Just-In-Time Thinking: Assuming all job postings are not great, it seems strange to ask a candidate to give their entire work history based on an imperfect description of the job. While some places can at least parse an uploaded resume (sometimes), do companies really need that much information when considering whether to call or not?

So how do you solve these problems?

The modern ATS is a database with a public web front end. So is Amazon. And so are major airline reservation systems. In many ways, these companies have set the expectations for how much information customers can expect.

Let’s take some lessons from eCommerce and hospitality systems and apply them to the application and hiring process.

A Perfect Experience for Candidates

To start, the candidate sees the job as they always do.

Rather than seeing the typical application — one that demands 10-15 minutes of uploading a resume and retyping the resume into the database — the candidate uploads the resume, types their name, email and LinkedIn URL.

Then, they are faced with this prompt: “In order to quickly evaluate you as a potential candidate, please answer these three questions about your experience.

  1. This sales role requires deep experience managing people. How many years have you been a sales manager? How many people did you manage? Where was the last place you managed people?
  2. We expect successful candidates will come in the door with B2B selling experience with complex products. How many years experience do you have at this? Was the largest deal you sold more than $10,000?
  3. What’s your preferred approach to engaging leads? Email asking for a meeting, email them some content of value, call on the phone to start a relationship, engage with them on social media, or tap your existing network to find a connection?”

Obviously, this is for a sales management role, so the questions would need to not only be incredibly concise and tailored to the role, but also written to show how they connect to the job (no, “what’s your favorite tree?” fluff), and revealing enough about the candidates’ core necessary skills to weigh their potential ability.

An LLM AI would read the resume and helps standardized skills and qualifications, so “sales director” at one role in a company of 100 wouldn’t be weighed more heavily than a “sales manager” role at a company of 10,000. The tool could then identify if anyone within the company knows this person and flag as a possible reference point.

Once the application is complete, the candidate sees a dashboard that lists all anonymized applicants, when they applied and what their “score” is based on a parsing of the resume and answers to the question. There is also a status column showing if a recruiter has reviewed the resume, if and when it has been passed to the hiring manager, and if an interview is set.

The candidate can sort the listing multiple ways to see if they are towards the top of the qualifications list, if their application has been reviewed and passed on, pending or in a waiting list, helping the candidate see their relative competition and how far along in the review process the company is.

As the candidate moves through the interview process, they are preemptively given the standard list of interview questions for everyone who makes it to this stage of the process. This means companies can craft questions that are tougher and potentially require research beforehand, giving the company the best chance to see the candidate in action. Candidates can see how many other people the company is talking to, and even add more information to their application based on interview feedback.

A Perfect Experience for Hiring Managers

Hiring managers can see in a click how many people applied, when they applied and which are the ones they should consider first, eliminating friction between them and the recruiter.

If the candidate is ultimately rejected, the process makes it easy to identify what qualities that candidate was lacking relative to the person who ultimately was given the role.

A few things to note: From a technological standpoint, this could be created and implemented almost immediately, as none of these steps require any new tech.

You’ll also note that the process doesn’t necessarily become any shorter. We may have reached the limits of how quickly a company can collect, consider and take action on candidate information. What this process does is create transparency on both sides. Candidates don’t have to wonder if their resumes are going straight to a trash pile, or if there’s an internal candidate already earmarked for the position, meaning anything they do is meaningless.

The process isn’t shorter, but it most certainly feels better in the same way having been told a check has been mailed to you doesn’t feel as good as seeing the last stage of the journey and where the delivery truck is.

A Perfect Experience for the Company

From the company, the value is that it forces hiring managers and recruiters to do recruiting properly — decide what skills are crucial, and which are nice to have. This much consideration in advance of the job posting lowers bias and allows the company to identify the best candidate of available options. It also creates enormous goodwill by giving candidates more information than they get today, extending positive brand sentiment and generating buzz about how committed this company must be when it says it cares about its people.

But obviously, the challenge isn’t technological. It’s political. Companies remain unwilling to do almost anything new in the hiring process. They fight tooth and nail to not reveal even the most basic data points around the job (salary ranges, anyone?), which forces them into a combative stance with all prospects and candidates.

The future of work starts by doing what it takes to invite collaboration between candidate/employee and the business, because ultimately, that’s what the business really wants out of its people.

How Mobile Apps are Reshaping Talent Acquisition in 2024

Hiring an appropriate fit for a company requires a lot of time and brainstorming. Hiring managers have a great responsibility to choose from hundreds of options for a single position. Dozens or even thousands of applicants apply for a single vacancy via an online job portal. Indeed, it is a difficult task to choose among various applicants and make a team full of expertise.

In between the process of applying for a position and being selected for the same, there are multiple steps that include sourcing, verifying, number of interview rounds, etc. There is a systematic procedure created to select and hire employees that has the potential to benefit the company in the long run.  Considering the evolving technology, talent acquisition is also transforming itself with the upcoming market trends and ever-changing candidate requirements.

Mobile app development has been one of the major parts of upcoming dynamic technologies. Some of the renowned talent acquisition applications in the market (like Nukrti.com, Linkedln, Lever, etc.) have proved themselves to be game-changers for the recruiting process. App development services have intensely reshaped the talent acquisition architecture. Let’s understand the impact of mobile applications on talent acquisition strategies.

How Do Mobile Apps Impact Talent Acquisition?

Accessibility and Convenience

Mobile applications have offered the talent acquisition industry with unparalleled tech solutions. Job seekers have the accessibility to apply for a job from anywhere. They can effortlessly find the right opportunity to submit the applications.

Additionally, they can schedule the interview according to their convenience. In the digital era, there are hardly walk-in interviews. Therefore, mobile app development companies are coming up with constantly revolutionizing technology that can help the ever-changing needs of the candidates.

Real-Time Communication

Communication is the cornerstone of any productive recruitment procedure. When you hire dedicated mobile app developers, they ensure continual communication between recruiters and job seekers. Mobile applications work as a bridge in talent acquisition. It benefits the candidates to engage with the talent hunters and ask queries, get updates and keep a constant connection throughout the staffing process.

Customized Job Recommendation

Mobile applications integrate artificial intelligence along with ML algorithms to analyze the data and work in accordance with the user’s needs and requirements. The algorithms ensure that candidates’ expectations align with the skills required by the company. This enhances the user experience and guarantees long-term and promising placements.

Video Interviewing

Mobile applications have greatly impacted talent acquisition by introducing video interviewing. Now, interviewers have the accessibility to engage in the recruitment process while being in their comfort zone. Mobile app development companies integrate features and functions that make people portray their best irrespective of geographical location.

Additionally, video interviewing has been of great benefit to those living in remote areas. Without compromising on their availability for the interview, people with appropriate skills and expertise can now aim for their dream jobs.

Gamification in Interview

Companies make the best decision when they hire mobile app developers, as they inculcate a horde of options to make the recruitment process more interactive and engaging.

Gamification in the interviewing process makes the candidate stick throughout the process. Companies often incorporate assessments that are compelling and encouraging polls and puzzles. This lets the hiring managers understand the candidates’ problem-solving ability, skills and thoughtfulness.

Enhanced Candidate Experience

Candidates’ experience is one of the top priorities of any company throughout the recruitment process. A mobile app development company has been an incredible contributor to talent acquisition in 2024.

Mobile applications engage the candidates with its interactive and engaging features. The targeted audience gets engrossed in dynamic interactive interview sessions and positive hiring processes. All this, in the end, affects the candidates’ perception of the company.

Data-Driven Decision Making

Mobile applications are surrounded by various analytical tools and ML algorithms that give recruiters better insights into candidates’ preferences. Applications study the data and trace the metrics.

Therefore, the company can easily modify its hiring strategies by studying the conversion rates of candidates, engagement rates and many such factors. This helps the company in the long run, as more and more people will apply for the position, and the company will be able to create an ideal team of experts that will benefit their business.

Comprehensive Analysis

It would not be wrong to state that the future of talent acquisition lies in mobile applications. Mobile app services have been an tool to be a bridge and connector between the recruiter and the candidate.

Considering the revolutionizing technology, talent acquisition will totally depend on mobile apps. Video interviewing, personalized job recommendations and data-driven decisions have made the recruitment journey an interactive and encouraging process.

Irrespective of their geographical knowledge and limited knowledge of job opportunities, candidates are able to aim for their dream job. Therefore, collaborating with a mobile app development company for talent acquisition is a strategic move for businesses to stay ahead in the market.

Embracing Digital Fluency: Navigating the Tech Skills Landscape

In a rapidly evolving digital landscape, we’ve gathered insights from industry leaders, including founders and COOs, to shed light on the pivotal digital skills for 2024. From understanding automation tools relevant to your field to mastering essential office skills and practical assessments, this article offers a comprehensive guide to preparing candidates for tomorrow’s digital challenges.

Automation Tools Relevant to Your Field

The top digital skill I’d recommend candidates develop going into 2024 is familiarity with the common AI and automation tools and systems used in your field. This doesn’t mean every candidate needs to understand how to create or train algorithms, but rather that you should have a working knowledge of the technology as it applies to your role.

For example, a marketing professional should know how to use AI tools for predictive and targeted advertising, how to set up and make use of chatbots, content creation using generative AI, and similar applications. For someone in HR, having knowledge of AI-based resume screening systems, talent pipelines and automated candidate communication tools will make your resume more “future-proof” and help you stand out in the talent market.

As far as how to cultivate these capabilities, there are ample learning resources available online, often for free, that can help you gain these AI-related skills. I also recommend that job seekers utilize their networks. Talking to other professionals can help you identify the top AI tools that are in current use, or are about to become more widespread in your field. Other professionals can also share tips, advice and best practices that can help you master these systems to further your career.

Rob Boyle
Marketing Operations Director, Airswift

Hands-On Experience with Niche Tools

In 2024, the demand for technical skills in specific tools and niches is expected to rise. For instance, in sales, having experience with specific tools like Salesforce or Tableau is becoming essential. Businesses are increasingly specific about their requirements, and candidates with hands-on experience in these areas will have an advantage. I’ve found that real-world experience is unparalleled in mastering these skills

Therefore, candidates should seek out internships, freelance projects or any opportunity that allows them to gain practical experience in their chosen field.

David Rubie-Todd
Co-Founder and Marketing Director, Glide

Coding for Online Business Presence

A key digital skill everyone should be aware of in 2024 is basic digital back-end coding and website management. The world lives on the internet now, and businesses want to ensure that they are visible and give potential clients an idea of how they work and why they’re the best at it.

This isn’t rocket science—having an employee with skills to help create an effective online presence is always welcome, especially if the business can’t afford to hire a full-fledged IT team. So, learning the coding language will help.

Manasvini Krishna
Founder, Boss as a Service

AI Tool Proficiency Across All Roles

The key digital skills that candidates should possess in 2024 will depend on their role within your company. After all, it’s unlikely that your receptionist needs to know how to write code.

A general digital skill that candidates should possess is the ability to understand and use AI tools. There’s always going to be a bit of a learning curve because you may use different AI tools than what other businesses are using, but candidates should show some level of understanding of technology and, in particular, using these types of tools. 2024 is going to be the year of AI, and that means that more and more businesses will be adopting AI and refining their uses for the technology.

Most employees are therefore going to come into contact with AI tools for some reason or another, meaning they’ll need to know how to use the tools and, at a very basic level, understand AI.

Lauren Carlstrom
COO, Oxygen Plus

Data Literacy for 2024

For 2024, candidates should level up on data literacy and AI basics. Understanding data trends and having a grasp of how AI impacts your industry is becoming essential. Also, skills in remote collaboration tools are key in our increasingly digital workplace.

To assess these skills, we include scenarios and problem-solving questions that require data interpretation during interviews. To cultivate these skills among current employees, we’ve rolled out continuous learning programs. This includes online courses and workshops on data analysis and AI trends.

Zephyr Chan
Founder and Growth Marketer, Better Marketer

SEO Mastery and Strategic Digital Thinking

Digital skills in 2024 will revolve around adaptability, strategic thinking, and mastery in SEO and performance marketing. Understanding consumer behavior and effective communication strategies within the ever-evolving digital platforms will be crucial.

At Grooveshark, we saw the power of SEO firsthand. We soared from 2,000 daily users to over 5,000 in a week by addressing indexing issues and other technical SEO handicaps. That’s a 2.5 times increase in traffic, thanks to well-executed SEO strategies!

Assess these skills through tangible deliverables and measured outcomes. Track performance indicators such as conversion rates or churn rates. With part of my team at Harmonic Reach, we ensured that campaigns continuously improved through weekly check-ins. Our marketing leadership was data-driven, outcome-focused and able to adapt to changing market conditions.

Strategic thinking should not just bring a temporary boost, but it should have the foresight to help the company steer in the right direction in the long run. That’s what separates the ordinary from the extraordinary.

Sam Tarantino
Founder, Harmonic Reach

Essential Office Skills and Practical Assessments

Applicants should be well-rounded. They should be really good at making spreadsheets and know how to use Google Documents fully. They should be able to reply to customers, know how to do research online for specific products and services, and be able to write back to customers quickly. Nothing fancy is needed to assess a candidate—just a quick test or demo that requires the application of multiple skills.

Derek Capo
COO, Starquix.com

Ethical Considerations in AI-Powered Recruitment

In the quest for fairness in AI-driven recruitment, we’ve gathered insights from five industry leaders. From balancing AI with human oversight to having comprehensive ethics in AI recruitment strategies, these experts share their experiences and solutions to the ethical challenges they’ve faced. Discover their valuable perspectives on maintaining integrity in the age of artificial intelligence.

Balancing AI with Human Oversight

The biggest ethical challenge in AI recruitment is ensuring that it doesn’t perpetuate biases. AI is only as unbiased as the data it’s fed, and historical hiring data can be skewed.

To mitigate this, AI is not made the sole decision-maker. It’s part of a broader, human-led process. It is used for initial screening, but the final decisions are always made by humans, ensuring a diverse range of perspectives. Maintaining fairness in recruitment is about constant vigilance, regular audits of the AI process and balancing technology with human judgment. It’s a commitment to using AI as a tool for inclusion, not exclusion.

Zephyr Chan
Founder and Growth Marketer, Better Marketer

Refining AI for Fair Candidate Assessment

One ethical challenge encountered in using AI in recruitment is the potential for bias in algorithmic decision-making. To address this, I implemented a rigorous evaluation process for the AI algorithms, continuously monitoring and refining them to ensure fairness.

We focused on diverse and representative training data, minimizing biases and improving the system’s ability to assess candidates fairly. Additionally, transparency in AI decision-making was prioritized, ensuring that candidates understand the criteria used in their evaluation. Regular audits and collaboration with diversity and inclusion experts further reinforced our commitment to maintaining fairness.

Addressing these ethical challenges not only upheld our responsibility to candidates but also strengthened the overall integrity and effectiveness of the AI-driven recruitment process.

Kartik Ahuja
CEO and Founder, GrowthScribe

Pausing AI Recruitment Over Bias Concerns

When testing AI for recruitment purposes, the main ethical challenge encountered was bias. Recruiting often comes down to more than what’s obvious. Sometimes the best candidates are those who don’t fit perfectly into a predefined box. Using AI meant potentially missing these candidates, as only very specific candidates would have made it through to the next process.

It was clear that there was at least some level of bias occurring, which is why the decision was made not to go forward with the use of AI for recruitment. For now, keeping an eye on its advancements is important, observing the benefits and risks it provides to other companies. There may be a possibility to test it again in the future at Oxygen Plus, but it would need to be refined further to ensure every candidate gets a fair opportunity to display their skills.

Lauren Carlstrom
COO, Oxygen Plus

Ensuring Ethical Compliance in Screening

AI is a powerful tool, but it’s not all-knowing.

The first challenge I encountered was that AI doesn’t know what’s right and what’s wrong, so it can’t tell you when something might be unethical or illegal. For example, if your company is legally required to keep certain information confidential and you’re using AI to screen candidates for a job, it could accidentally let through someone who had access to that confidential information in their previous job.

In order to address this problem, I worked with my team to create a list of all the legal requirements we had to meet and made sure that each candidate went through our screening process before he or she was allowed into the interview process. We also made sure that every member of our team understood these requirements so they could flag any potential problems before they became an issue.

Gert Kulla
CEO, Batlinks

Comprehensive Ethics in Recruitment Strategy

Ethical considerations are critical for AI applications in recruitment, including appropriately balancing ethics and compliance with ROI when making build vs. buy decisions. Much of the data available to train AI recruitment models is biased—for example, historically, C-suite executives have been overwhelmingly white and male—and this requires careful consideration in the design and use of AI tools to aid recruitment.

There are a range of aspects to address, including ensuring data used to train AI tools is ethically sourced, solutions are monitored and audited for ethical alignment during build and after launch, and policies are in place to mitigate existing biases and ensure biases are not amplified.

Organizations can begin to address these challenges by 1) crafting guidelines for AI in recruitment that align with the company’s ethical standards and frameworks, 2) continuously monitoring ethical alignment throughout the build, assessment and ongoing usage, and 3) providing mechanisms for users and builders alike to raise potential ethical issues and a means to address them.

There is a significant positive opportunity to use AI within recruitment, provided appropriate care and a thoughtful approach to ethical challenges are considered by builders and users alike.

Meghan Anzelc, Ph.D.
Chief Data and Analytics Officer, Three Arc Advisory

Creative Marketing Strategies to Recruit Gen Z

Gen Z has notoriously set itself apart as the generation with higher standards for the workplace. They are asking for better pay, a positive balance between work and life, flexibility and more inclusive workplace cultures. According to a 2023 global survey conducted by Deloitte, less than half (48%) of Gen Z believe business is having a positive impact on society. Moreover, six in ten Gen Zers believe businesses have no ambition beyond wanting to make money. Though employers have made progress since pre-pandemic standards, there is still progress to be made to align brand values in a digestible package for job-seekers.  For companies looking to stand out to this finicky demographic, the answer may lie in the collaboration between talent acquisition and marketing teams.

Demonstrating Values and Crafting an Enticing EVP

When it comes to showcasing company brand and culture to catch Gen Z’s eye, a robust Employee Value Proposition (EVP) is the cornerstone of any employer’s appeal.  An EVP is the set of promises an organization makes to its employees in exchange for their time, knowledge and skills. Those promises can include pay and benefits, growth opportunities, recognition, culture, and belonging. If crafted effectively, your EVP communicates why someone would want to work for your organization and what they can expect to experience as an employee.

Gen Z scrutinizes potential employers through a unique lens in comparison to other generations in the workforce.  Though misalignment of values helps candidates to self-qualify, employers don’t want to bypass potentially great candidates due to poor packaging or a lack of thoughtfulness when developing their EVP. Moreover, the company’s culture and values should be an integral component of the recruitment marketing strategy. But, how can companies convey their values and EVP effectively in their recruitment strategy? Airtight partnerships between Chief Marketing Officers (CMOs) and Human Resources/Talent Acquisition teams are essential.

Selling Your Organization, Not Just Your Open Positions

Recognizing the need for innovative marketing strategies tailored to Gen Z’s distinctive job-seeking approach is imperative. That’s why the collaboration between a company’s CMO and TA team is so essential. By incorporating marketing experts to craft creative messaging, organizations can leverage responsive design and user-friendly interfaces to captivate the attention of Gen Z candidates. Creative-minded marketing pros, in-house or through a recruitment marketing agency, can also help HR build compelling career sites that power seamless candidate experience. A remarkable 67% of Gen Z attest to the influence of an organization’s career site on their decision to engage with that employer, so mobilizing the best and brightest to bolster your career site is a must.

Additionally, job board advertisements sway 55% of candidates in their decision-making process. Collaborating on these efforts also ensures that the EVP is strong and extended into every channel of an organization’s strategic recruitment outreach, which is no easy task when there are so many job boards and consumer marketing channels to consider. However, by nailing down which channels are most likely to reach your desired audience, this challenge becomes manageable, especially when analyzing the results of campaigns active campaigns and optimizing advertising dollars.

Targeting the Ideal Candidate

Marketing insights can shed light on the origins of an organization’s top candidates, enabling TA teams to refine messaging, campaigns, and ad placements to effectively target their audience. While consumers are mainly seeing or hearing job ads on Indeed (47%), LinkedIn (33%) and Google (31%), other popular platforms for job ads and employer branding include Facebook (30%), ZipRecruiter (29%), YouTube (18%), Amazon (14%) and TikTok (13%). If this target audience is spending at least five hours of their day on these social channels, then optimizing campaigns for these platforms can only multiply the engagement of potential candidates.

Video Platforms and Mobile Reign Supreme

Recruiting the younger generation of today requires a tailored strategy that keeps job-seekers engaged with the employer across platforms. And, what’s capturing this generation’s attention nowadays might not be surprising. The answer is video platforms.

Video consumption is ingrained in the daily life of Gen Zers, but its use is not restricted to keeping up with friends or the latest trends. A recent HireClix survey showed consumer sites like  TikTok and YouTube were among the most popular for displaying job ads and employer branding messages. This makes sense if you look at the amount of time younger generations spend engaging in video content. For example, a Deloitte report found that 20% of Gen Z spend five hours or more per day on video social media platforms alone – like TikTok and YouTube. This presents the opportunity for companies to meet candidates where they are by showcasing an employee value proposition to a passive candidate and directing them to a quick and painless lead capture process enabling them to join a talent community so they can get updates on future career opportunities.

Because most social media platforms are mobile-first, Gen Z spends a lot of time on their smartphones. This is clear in the way this age group searches for jobs, as 87% of Gen Zers want to find their dream gig from their phones. Therefore, another essential ingredient when recruiting Gen Z is to ensure career sites and the application process are optimized for mobile devices.

In this ever-evolving labor market, the employers of today and tomorrow must be agile and adaptive by embracing the change needed to cultivate a dynamic workforce. By aligning the efforts of their TA and marketing teams, organizations can construct a recruitment blueprint that resonates with the standards set by Gen Z. Embracing a mobile-first approach, amplifying the employer brand with a realistic and vibrant company culture and bringing CMOs together with the human resources team are pivotal steps towards not only attracting but also retaining the brightest talent of this generation. The future belongs to those who dare to innovate and evolve in tandem with the shifting landscape of the job market.

Uplevel Your Recruiting Team with Powerful Reporting

The reporting capabilities of recruiting technology have evolved in recent years, equipping Talent Acquisition teams with a wealth of data that are critical for success. And those analytics have meant invaluable results for leading recruiting teams who know how to leverage them. After all, hiring involves repeatable processes and is brimming with data that can enhance and improve those processes.

The outcome—if this data is well-leveraged—is better, more efficient hires. But recruiting doesn’t always know how to get value out of their numbers. Gem’s latest ebook Mastering Recruitment Metrics: An in-depth guide explains how individuals and leaders from the recruiting org can unlock value from data in their funnel to elevate their recruiters, improve operational efficiency, and position TA as a strategic partner to the business.

Transforming Recruiters Into Talent Acquisition Authorities

When recruiters can bring the right data and intelligence to tell the company’s hiring story, they can confidently push back when necessary, hold hiring teams accountable, earn hiring managers’ trust—and become a legitimate business partner.

Debugging the Hiring Funnel and Improving Process Efficiencies

The key to improving recruiting and hiring performance is having data on the entirety of your recruiting operations in one place (just like sales and marketing teams have done for years). You can’t improve performance if you can’t figure out what’s working and what’s not—and it’s certainly more difficult to track metrics without a single source of truth for all your hiring efforts.

Forecasting Progress and Capacity Planning for Hiring Goals

Building a strong, trusted relationship with Finance is critical to getting the resources you need to fill the reqs you’ve been handed. Your CFO wants to set reasonable goals, but they need your help in getting data that justifies why you need more budget or more recruiters. They want confidence that if they say “yes,” you’ll deliver.

Reporting to Your C-Suite and Demonstrating Ta’s Impact

What executives ultimately care about are the business impacts of Recruiting: is Talent Acquisition hitting its goals; and if not, how can you solve that problem together? Getting into executives’ heads and adopting their strategic mindset means translating data into dollars and prioritizing predictive analytics over historical metrics, results and outputs over process efficiency metrics, strategic impacts over functional or operational ones, and revenue over cost-cutting. C-levels want to know about increasing revenue, productivity, and innovation.

Learn How Best-In-Class Talent Acquisition Teams Are Wielding Data

To get a closer look on how to tackle your recruitment metrics, download our ebook Mastering Recruitment Metrics: an in-depth guide to learn what metrics matter, and why.

In this ebook, we provide TA with a guide on how individuals and leaders from the recruiting org can unlock value from data in their funnel to elevate their recruiters, improve operational efficiency, and position TA as a strategic partner to the business.

How AI-Enabled Predictive Analytics Influences Recruitment Strategies

In an era where data reigns supreme, we’ve gathered insights from seven leaders, including cofounders and CEOs, to explore how predictive analytics powered by AI have reshaped their recruitment strategies. From transforming recruitment with AI to promoting diversity, these executives shared their data-driven recruitment success stories.

Transforming Recruitment with AI

The adoption of predictive analytics powered by AI has been a game-changer in our recruitment strategy. It has given us invaluable insights into our hiring process, allowing us to make data-driven decisions and recruit top talent more efficiently.

One success story that stands out was when we were looking for a new marketing manager. We had always struggled to find the right candidate with the right skills and experience, and our traditional recruitment methods were not yielding the results we desired.

That’s when we incorporated predictive analytics into our strategy. By analyzing data from past successful hires, as well as key characteristics and attributes of top-performing marketing managers in our industry, we could create a custom algorithm that identified the most suitable candidates for the role.

David Rubie-Todd
Co-Founder and Marketing Director, Glide

Crafting Custom Recruitment Algorithms

I’ve realized that true power comes from identifying strategic insights that contribute to long-term excellence rather than simply predicting success. We’ve progressed beyond surface-level analytics, delving deep into data intricacies to find the characteristics that genuinely contribute to our team’s success.

Our distinct method includes personalized algorithmic precision. Rather than employing a one-size-fits-all approach, we created algorithms that are suited to the individual needs of CompareBanks. These algorithms are highly designed to balance technical capabilities, cultural alignment and adaptability — all of which are critical components of success in our organization. As a result, our recruitment strategy is not just data-driven but also intricately crafted to fit the dynamic needs of our unique work culture.

This distinctive blend of strategic insights and personalized algorithms has reshaped our recruitment landscape, bringing forth a team with diverse skills.

Percy Grunwald
Co-Founder, CompareBanks

Rapidly Acquiring Tech Talent 

Last quarter, we piloted an AI-enabled skills engine that analyzes candidates’ resumes and profiles to match open roles with an extraordinary fit. One success story involved rapidly filling a niche senior React developer position for a client.

Instead of combing through hundreds of profiles, I could laser-focus my outreach on qualified matches. The data revealed vital trends in compensation expectations, competing offers and motivators for switching jobs. Armed with those behavioral insights, I tailored compelling offers that resulted in an accepted offer within three weeks!

Leveraging predictive analytics gives us an unfair competitive advantage in attracting top tech talent.

Lou Reverchuk
Co-Founder and CEO, EchoGlobal

Using Data-Driven Employee Retention Strategies

Employee retention has benefited from predictive analytics. By analyzing employee data and identifying factors contributing to attrition, we can implement proactive retention strategies, such as tailored development plans and mentorship programs. This has led to a noticeable reduction in turnover and increased job satisfaction among our employees.

Shawn Plummer
CEO, The Annuity Expert

AI-Enhanced Culture-Fit Hiring

At dasFlow, predictive analytics powered by AI have significantly enhanced our recruitment strategy, particularly in identifying candidates who align well with our company culture and possess unique skill sets. We adopted an AI-driven tool that analyzes historical hiring data and candidate profiles to predict applicant success, focusing on skills, past performance and cultural fit.

A notable success was hiring our lead designer. Initially overlooked by traditional methods, the AI tool identified her as a top candidate because of her blend of creativity and technical skills. Since joining, she has significantly contributed to our design innovation and team dynamics, exemplifying the tool’s efficacy.

This integration of AI into recruitment has allowed us to make more nuanced, data-driven hiring decisions. It’s proven invaluable in discovering candidates who are not just qualified but truly enhance our team’s capabilities and culture.

Nicolas Krauss
Founder and CEO, dasFlow Custom Sublimation Apparel

Promoting Diversity with Predictive Analytics

One significant influence of AI-driven predictive analytics is its ability to mitigate bias in the hiring process. These algorithms focus on skills, qualifications and performance metrics rather than demographic factors, promoting diversity and inclusivity in our workforce. It has also provided us with valuable insights into unconscious biases that might have otherwise gone unnoticed.

Tony Mariotti
CEO, RubyHome

Going Beyond Resumes with Skills-Based Hiring

We use it to make smarter hiring decisions as we’ve scaled as a company. One success story was applying these technologies when expanding our writing team. Previously, we relied heavily on resumes and job history to evaluate our applicants, but we found that data didn’t always reliably predict the performance of our new employees.

As we are a remote-first company, finding the right fit is important. We need employees who value their autonomy and can be left to get the job done with the highest quality. However, off paper, some hires with stellar backgrounds underdelivered, while lesser-known writers vastly exceeded our expectations.

We aimed to surface signal through the noise, so we built customized assessments analyzing writing samples for key attributes like creativity, research aptitude, accuracy and engagement. This has greatly helped us evaluate candidates based on their actual skills versus the resume fluff.

Jason Smit
CEO, Contentellect

Strategies for Building a Diverse and Agile Workforce

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As Human Resources executives at a financial firm, my team and I are constantly developing out-of-the-box hiring strategies to broaden our talent pipeline. In financial services, it’s time to break free from traditional recruitment methods that rely on top-tier business schools, which historically narrow talent pipelines and foster a culture of sameness. While this approach has led to some commendable hires over the years, research shows that there is not only a moral case but a compelling business case to expand the aperture.

According to a McKinsey report, companies that recruit a diverse workforce with a variety of experiences and backgrounds are 12% more likely to financially outperform competitors. By expanding your talent pipelines with alternative talent strategies, you too can unlock the power of high performing, diverse teams and achieve great financial results.

To widen your talent pipeline, consider these creative approaches that yield significant results and great new hires.

Looking Beyond the Ivy League

Many financial services firms focus on a few “target” schools, limiting their talent pool. For example, Investopedia reports that the Wharton School of Business is one of the top feeder schools for investment banking jobs at Goldman Sachs, and NYU is the top feeder school for JPMorgan Chase. This often leads to students from target schools having relatively easy access to secure interviews with multiple financial companies, fostering a team with considerable homogeneity.

Diverging from this pattern and broadening engagement to encompass a diverse array of institutions inclusive of state universities, HBCUs, all-women colleges and private universities is a key solution to enriching your talent pipelines. A diverse range of schools fosters varied perspectives shaped by factors such as location, socioeconomic status, race, ethnicity, gender, religion and academic focus. These unique backgrounds expose students to distinct experiences and insights, enriching their understanding of the world and contributing to a more inclusive and well-rounded society.

In the context of financial services, having a team with diverse perspectives can be particularly beneficial when making investment decisions, because the team will have the ability to consider a wider range of factors and avoid the biases that can lead to groupthink.

Here are a few examples: A student from a state university may have a better understanding of the financial needs of middle-class Americans than a student from an Ivy League school, while a student from an HBCU may have a better understanding of the financial challenges faced by Black Americans than a student from a predominantly White institution. A student from a women’s college may have a different perspective on gender and finance than a student from a co-educational college, and a student from a private university may have a better understanding of the financial needs of high-net-worth individuals than a student from a public university.

By having a team with a wider range of perspectives, financial services firms can better understand their customers, make better investment decisions and develop more innovative products and services.

Transferable Skills: The Secret Weapon for Success in Financial Services

HR professionals in the financial services industry often focus on candidates with traditional skills and experience. However, many of the most successful teams in the industry are made up of individuals with transferable skills from non-traditional backgrounds.

Transferable skills are those that can be applied across different industries and roles. They include skills such as problem-solving, communication, teamwork and critical thinking. These skills are essential for success in the rapidly changing financial services industry, where new technologies and business models are constantly emerging.

According to a recent Forbes article, the financial services industry is facing a significant skills gap. The article states that “the demand for tech talent in financial services is growing at twice the rate of the overall workforce.” This skills gap is creating an opportunity for individuals with transferable skills from non-traditional backgrounds to enter the financial services industry and make significant contributions.

For example, a recent hire at our company defied conventional expectations. With a background as a former intelligence officer and retired Army Ranger with over two decades of experience in conflict zones, he now serves as a managing director on our Supply Chain and Strategic Opportunities team. His unique insights equip him with critical skills to evaluate supply chain integrity and identify investment opportunities.

The landscape of work is rapidly changing, driven by technological advancements and a redefined concept of professional growth. Talent acquisition and HR professionals must embrace the reality that sourcing candidates without conventional backgrounds, degrees or skills is essential to building an agile workforce that can navigate this evolving landscape.

The Power of Data in Shaping the Future of Talent Acquisition

Recruitment data is essential for shaping the future of talent acquisition. It enables organizations to make data-driven decisions, enhance diversity initiatives, mitigate bias and build agile workforces.

Recruitment data reveals candidate strengths and helps organizations identify and address gaps in their recruitment process that may hinder attracting top talent. For example, data analysis can uncover biases in job postings and interview questions.

Additionally, recruitment data can be used to predict attrition rates and assess job performance, which can inform talent development, succession planning and other strategic decisions. Data analysis can identify trends, such as which backgrounds may have higher attrition rates or which skills lead to success in specific roles. This insight can be used to develop targeted talent programs and succession plans, ensuring that organizations have a diverse and qualified talent pipeline.

Overall, the utilization of recruitment data is a powerful tool for shaping the future of talent acquisition and building dynamic and agile workforces that are inclusive, equitable and well-positioned to succeed in the ever-evolving professional landscape.