With our job fair coming up next Thursday, January 25th, I thought it would be interesting to take a slightly different look at our job market. Not from the perspective of candidates, but of the companies that are trying to attract, recruit and hire the best talent in town.
One of the first and most important things to remember about recruiting top talent is that potential employees today all use resources like Glassdoor to compare companies. Salary and benefits are important too, but they’re not the only boxes that need to be checked. For that reason, it’s critical that companies lay the groundwork by cultivating a welcoming culture of collaboration while proactively fostering a workplace of diversity, equality and inclusion.
For the most part, the tools used to attract and inform candidates about open positions rely on traditional tools such as the company careers page, LinkedIn, job boards and other online recruiting applications. Employee referral programs are another resource that continue to be very successful.
Armed with a list of candidates for a position, the company is then faced with a decision. Does it wait until it has found an ideal candidate who satisfies every requirement, or does it cast a wider net? Consider this: The average cost of hiring a new employee is $4,129, according to a 2016 Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM) survey.
In addition, it’s estimated that it takes roughly 42 days to fill a job opening, however this is probably an optimistic length of time given our current job market here in the Pacific Northwest. My point is that a company is far better off over the long term if it hires a motivated person who demonstrates great potential for a role, rather than focusing solely on a candidate’s length of experience.
Hiring managers and recruiters should also keep an open mind to new tools like Koru, which promise to streamline the hiring process by using predictive techniques that rank potential candidates and reduce the need for phone screening. By having candidates complete a 20-minute online assessment, Koru attempts to measure the most important skills, while using machine learning and artificial intelligence to predict a performance fit.
There are a lot of other tangible and intangible things for companies to consider when trying to compete for top talent: Is the company stable, making money and growing? Does it provide programs and policies that are friendly to employees and encourage diversity, equality and inclusion? Is the corporate mission and vision clear, and does it capture mindshare? Will a new employee feel like a valuable part of something bigger than themselves? Does the organization provide valuable opportunities for development and professional growth?
A lot of companies are currently in hiring mode. Come and meet some of them at our job fair next Thursday. Doors open at 4 p.m. and stay open until 7 p.m. In addition to the recruiters, the event will have seminars and staff on hand to help you brush up on your resume writing and other skills. The event will be held at Galvanize, 111 S Jackson St, Seattle, WA 98104.
