Businesses are hungry for employees these days. It’s no wonder with the national unemployment rate below 4%. There are simply fewer bodies to fill all of the available positions. Worse still, the number of qualified applicants is often diminishingly small. At least, it can look that way. If you’re struggling to keep your applicant pipeline filled, here are 4 tips to boost the numbers in that pipeline.
Simplify Your Process
When was the last time you reviewed your application process? If it’s been more than a few years, it’s time to revisit it. With so many employers looking for bodies these days, most applicants won’t slog through a complicated multi-step process just to start the process. Look for ways you can simplify your process to keep the initial application to a few steps. You can always move the pieces around so that things you used to ask for at the outset don’t show up until later in the hiring process.
Write Realistic Job Descriptions
It happens far too often. A job description turns into a fantasy wish list. Case in point, job descriptions for entry-level positions that ask for 5-10 years of experience and a laundry list of advanced skills. Look at your job descriptions and ask, “Does an applicant realistically need to know all of these things and possess that much experience to do this job?” If not, rewrite the job description to more accurately reflect the job responsibilities and demands.
Include the Salary
Another common trend in job descriptions is using meaningless phrases like “competitive pay,” rather than just stating the salary. This will make a lot of potential applicants take a pass on applying. At best, they don’t want to spend hours preparing a tailored resume, a cover letter, and sitting through up to three interviews, just to find out that the salary is $10,000 less than they expected. At worst, they assume that it means the company grossly underpays all of their employees and don’t want to advertise it. Including the salary will bring in more applicants with the right financial expectations.
Use Outside Recruiters
One of the simpler ways to secure more applicants for an open position is by using outside recruiters. As good as your HR people are at their jobs, they aren’t as good as people who specialize in staffing and recruitment. While you always want the final say on who gets the job, letting experts send you candidates can speed up the process a lot.
You Need To Adjust Your Expectations
Many businesses never really adjusted after the financial crisis. They could set up their hiring process any way they wanted because every position would get piles of overqualified applicants. These days, it’s an applicant’s market. People simply have too many other options for securing a job. You need to tailor your process to make it easy to apply and provide sufficient information.
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