Category: Talent Acquisition

As human beings, it is only natural that we have a need to belong. Modern employees, particularly, increasingly want to feel belong and want to build meaningful connections at work. According to Harvard Business Review, if workers feel like they belong, the turnover risk drops by 50%.

How do you make employees feel like they belong? The answer is by keeping them engaged. This article will guide you through the importance of employee engagement and provide you with some transformational employee engagement ideas.

What Does Employee Engagement Mean?

The definition of the phrase “employee engagement” varies depending on who you ask. Some would claim that it refers to eager, happy, and content employees in their work, while others adamantly assert that it refers to how active your employees are in projects and company-wide activities.

In general, employee engagement refers to workers who are dedicated to their objectives. They value their organizations. In other words, engaged staff participate not just because they are required to do so, but because they have an emotional investment or ambition in assigned projects.

Why You Should Care About Employee Engagement Ideas?

Numerous studies have shown the major benefits of employee engagement. Let’s go through each of them thoroughly to make the best use of employee engagement activities.

Higher retention rate

You get to keep the best people when you engage your employees the right way. Turnover costs can be a real headache, and having to go through the hiring cycle often disrupt team progress. However, with engaged employees, this should no longer be a problem. After all, it would not make sense for a happy and satisfied worker to look for a new job elsewhere.

Therefore, make sure your best people are engaged – if not, this might be the main reason why they choose to not continue their work at your company anymore. Use bravoINSIGHTS to track and trace your turnover reports, and monitor your employee engagement to prevent turnover in the first place.

Enhance productivity

A company that values employee engagement values their work. When employees feel appreciated, they are more likely to work hard and dedicate their time and energy to proactively reach the company’s goals.

The positive behaviors of engaged employees then lead to improved productivity and even push for a higher number of sales, more creative marketing campaigns, more ambitious business goals, and so on. Then, it is the business that enjoys the beneficial impacts of these engaged workers.

A higher rate of customer satisfaction

More often than not, people who are happy and satisfied with their jobs are the ideal ones to interact with customers. Their positive energy is contagious – your customers would most likely notice this positive energy, too.

Both the customers and the company are happy with such a dedicated service. With proper recognition and reward, the employees know that their work is acknowledged and appreciated and are more motivated to keep up the great performance, delivering customers with continuous positive customer experience.

A strong company reputation

Happy employees willingly promote your business. Satisfied customers let everyone know how they love your service. Do keep in mind that word of mouth spreads like wildfire. You can earn a strong reputation based on the positive comments surrounding your company.

A company’s reputation becomes a strong recruitment tool – the great impression regarding the company’s image and culture naturally draws more candidates. The recruitment process will go smoother, without the need for bigger investments.           

From there, you only need to use bravoTALENT to manage all the profiles of potential job seekers. At your disposal is a powerful AI-enabled technology that filters and matches the most suitable talent for your vacancies. 

Employee Engagement Ideas

Now with all the benefits in mind, below are some employee engagement ideas for your reference. There are plenty of employee engagement activities out there – some of which you have probably even tried before. We have listed out some of the most well-known employee engagement ideas that are widely used by many companies. They are grouped together so it will be easier for you to come back and refer to them when needed.

Now, let’s take your employee engagement ideas to another level.

Activities for creating a sense of community

Compile a playlist together

One great way to create a sense of community is by having everyone create something together that is not work-related. One good idea is to have everyone contribute to a weekly music playlist. They can have it played during breaks or special occasions. This is a great way for everyone to share their hobbies and passions while still being productive.

Organize happy hours

This is probably one of the more familiar employee engagement ideas. Happy hours are a great opportunity for employees to bond and share topics outside of work. It is always better to talk to someone face to face rather than having to guess their real intentions through emails or chats. It is even better to get to know your colleagues over good food and drinks.

Offer mentorships or advice-sharing sessions

Mentors play a crucial role in one’s career and personal growth. They also play a major role in employee engagement, productivity, and even retention. Have senior employees and leaders mentor the more junior ones – that is how you let them know the company cares about their personal growth and development.

Another engagement activity worth considering is having someone hold short weekly or monthly sharing sessions – it can be about a hard skill people are struggling with, like UX design, or a soft skill that many know is important but still avoid at all costs – like public speaking. Similar to the activity above, this is how you let your employees know they are appreciated and given opportunities to learn and grow.

Activities for company feedback

Have suggestion boxes

A crucial element of employee engagement is letting your employee know they are heard. Having a suggestion box might sound somewhat outdated, but this is a great way to learn about the problems and concerns your employees are having.

However, remember to seriously take these recommendations into consideration and act on them when it seems fitting to do so. Otherwise, your employees would feel as if this box was only for show and might become even more disengaged.

Have Q&A sessions with the CEO

Keeping connectivity from top to bottom is important. However, this might become increasingly difficult as your company grows. Therefore, having direct conversations with the CEO might be essential to keep the connection going.

Frankly speaking, however, high-level leaders do not always have the time to answer every single question. Furthermore, employees possibly feel intimidated to directly pose questions to C-suite personnel. Hence, it is suggested that you have everyone submit questions and then organize a session where the leaders respond to the most frequently asked questions. There is a high chance that people have been wondering the same thing but have never gotten the chance to ask.

Activities for benefit programs

Recover tuition and education expenses

Encourage your employees to learn outside of the workplace and apply new knowledge to their everyday work by providing education reimbursement and stipends. Once again, this is how you show you care about their personal development. After all, a passion to learn is one of the top qualities any company looks for in new hires. One way to quench that thirst is a variety of benefits tied to education or offering them development programs.

Support flexible work hours

People who work flexible hours are more able to balance their personal life with their busy schedules, lowering stress and increasing satisfaction. Parental leave and flexible work are two benefits you can consider to help your workers with their work-life balance.

Retain Your Best People with Employee Engagement Ideas

If you are experiencing difficulty with employee retention, employee engagement ideas might just be what you need. Some of your opponents might already be enjoying all the benefits mentioned earlier in this article – and this is the very reason you should take advantage of employee engagement ideas, too! Remember, the very fundamental need of any human being is to feel a sense of belonging. Make sure that is exactly how your employees feel when they work for you.

Last year we highlighted ten talent acquisition trends for 2022, and we have seen them playing out so far. For 2023, we bring to attention the trends that will continue to matter a lot to employers who want to survive The Great Attrition and avoid revenue loss and an overload of unfilled vacancies. These are: 

1. Be data-informed, not data-driven 
2. Personalized recruiting experience
3. Internal mobility
4. Consistent but authentic employer branding
5. Embrace hybrid teams and temporary hires

1. Data-Informed Talent Acquisition

To be data-informed is different from to be data-driven. Saurav at Towards Data Science explains the distinctions between these two buzzwords. In short, to be data-driven means we make all decisions based on data even when our common sense does not agree.

On the other hand, to be data-informed means we make decisions based on data AND our common sense, intuitive insights, industry experience, or unquantifiable wisdom. Data is not our single point of reference.

To be data-informed is particularly salient for talent acquisition, because even when we have the aid of big data, we are dealing with people and their unpredictabilities. Data does help us overcome biases, but we should be well aware of the biases in the data itself, as a result of how the data is gathered and processed.

To be data-informed in talent acquisition, we have to question two things:

– how good is the data in representing the people behind it? 

– how to interpret the data in a particular context?

The answers to these questions require critical thinking and intuition borne out of experience. The stake is we misjudge a candidate’s fit, especially for the increasing number of people who want to switch career, or those with unconventional career paths. Data-informed value judgments are equally on par with data-driven insights. 

2. Personalized Recruiting Experience

With a data-informed approach to talent acquisition, you can start using the data to put together personalized profiles of potential candidates and the right way to approach them. Instead of waiting for whoever applies, proactively profile your ideal candidate based on employment records and employee feedback on the department in question. What qualities, competencies, and personality that an ideal candidate should have to do well in this job and get along with the team?

Think beyond formal education and industry experience because more and more people want to switch careers and are willing to upskill or reskill for their new career. They are bringing with them a trove of novel experiences that will enrich your team’s diversity and creative thinking. To build scientifically informed candidate profiles, you may want to consider career aptitude tests to discover the gaps in competencies and personality in your team.

Next, research where your ideal candidates would look for jobs. Apart from the traditional job boards, also consider social media, online forums, interest-based group chats, personal blogs. If your prospective candidates are active on them, then you are in luck. How a person interacts with an online group says a lot about how they would work in a team, how engaged and passionate they are in their subject matter, and how willing they are in helping others. After all, an online forum is an informal, more honest version of workplace discussions.

A small tip: make sure your recruiting channels are mobile-friendly. This includes:

– a career page with a responsive mobile interface

– forms with checkboxes, pre-filled blanks with essential info, and seamless document uploading or attachment

– prompt responses on social media channels with follow-up phone calls when requested.

Many people are looking for jobs on their mobile devices, especially those thinking of changing jobs and have little privacy to do so at their current workplace. Mobile-friendly recruiting experience tends to attract those who are outgoing, decisive and confident about their fit, who just want to get to the interviews as soon as possible. The easy interactivity on social media allows you to send tailored messages to entice a candidate’s interests and gauge their intention.

Your employees’ social media activities are also a source of an authentic and trustworthy reputation. Employee advocacy works particularly well when you take pride in providing a great workplace for your employees, because the company culture shines through their social media and attracts potential candidates with the same values. 

Essentially, a personalized recruiting experience means treating your candidates like you treat your customers. Reach them where they are, evaluate their competencies with various tools, and explicitly demonstrate how they could be a good fit for your team. 

3. Internal Mobility

Your employees are not static workers – they are constantly evolving talents. Many undertake extra study, gain new skills, or try their hands at a different role because they are getting bored with their current one. Do not let these people leave for a presumably greener pasture elsewhere. When recruiting for a new role, have an internal mobility program in place, and prioritize old blood when they have stellar track records.

Internal mobility is a win-win situation because it costs much less to move an employee to a new position than to hire a new employee. The old employee at a new role would likely be grateful for the new opportunity and/or pay grade, because they do not have to go through the uncertainties and inconveniences of switching jobs. They also have institutional knowledge, require less training, and you get to enjoy their loyalty and transformation.

4. Consistent And Authentic Employer Branding

The Great Attrition is happening partly because employees are becoming sensitive to branding that sounds nice but undistinctive. Experienced candidates have been through the ups and downs of the pandemic and self-employment. They are quick to discern and even suspect employers who do not deliver their promises. You need to offer the real deal, no-nonsense Employee Value Proposition, instead of throwing around nice-sounding words in an ad.

To stand up to their scrutiny and keep them working for you, employer branding is more than just consistent images and messages across all channels. It starts with the commitment to making your employees happy. This means good talent management practices, appropriate benefits and compensation, inspirational career paths, and exemplary leadership. The branding should reflect only what it is really like working for your company. Then, your reputation as a good employer will spread.

With the aid of the hyper-connected internet, candidates have many ways to find out the best places to work for. Authenticity is especially important for the socially aware Gen Z workers who are filling up the young workforce. It also works great for your employee referral program – a time-honored, tried and tested way to attract compatible employees.

5. Embrace Hybrid Teams And Temporary Hires

Despite the move back to the office, many employees have gotten used to remote work. The pandemic shook up our lives, and in its wake, people have built a new life around working from home. Most employers have faced some pushback among their employees in moving everyone back to the office, and it is important to carefully consider this in your company’s context.

The crucial consideration here is your priorities as an organization. For some roles requiring a level of security, in which face-to-face interactions are essential, then it makes sense to go back to the office. For other roles that can be done remotely, then remote or hybrid work arrangements should be approved. Find ways to build a culture for a hybrid team, and use regular surveys to monitor their satisfaction and make timely adjustments.

Moreover, do not just nurture your official staff and ignore your temporary hires. Although they do not work for you full time, they are taking up a larger share of the workforce. Outsourcing and hiring temporary staff are part and parcel of the agile workplace nowadays, as this employment model keeps your overheads low and improves your responsiveness to crises. Temporary hires are part of your team, too. Have in place a proper benefit program for them, because you may need to hire them again and again whenever the needs arise without burdening your budget.

Final Thoughts

How to attract the right people at the right time is a difficult question, and the answers lie in testing out to see if these talent acquisition trends will work for 2023. Many words have been said about the challenges a recruiting team faces in a job market where there are more quitting employees than there are applicants. Even if some of these trends are beyond your capacity, at the end of the day, a company that attracts and retains talents is a company that cares for their employees with clear actions, policies, and AI-enabled tools. That effort is the best ‘trend’ that will pay off.

In today’s job market, it is not enough to simply post a job opening and wait for the applications to come rolling in. With employers competing for top talent, you need to put in the extra effort to make your company stand out. That’s why employers need to apply for recruitment marketing. 

What Is a Recruitment Marketing All About?

Recruitment marketing refers to the process of building and communicating one organization’s employer brand and value proposition. Simply put, it is all about promoting your company as an “employer of choice” to potential candidates in order to attract, engage, and retain them. 

Recruitment marketing plans are designed to serve just that purpose – they lay out different strategies and tactics to help employers cultivate brand awareness as well as visibility on the job market. A successful recruitment marketing plan will take into account your target audience, budget, and organizational goals. It will also consider the various stages of the candidate journey – from awareness all the way to conversion.

10 Innovative Recruitment Marketing Strategies That Work for Any Organization

Recruitment marketing strategies play a pivotal role in talent acquisition as they transform the way companies and organizations do recruitment in an efficient manner, as well as how they are perceived in the job market. When done right, recruitment marketing can bring a range of benefits to your organization. And the master plan of efficient recruitment marketing must be incorporated with the right strategies and tactics.  

Optimize Your Website & Career Page

According to the Jobvite Recruiter Nation Report, 60% of employers are investing in website career pages. For organic visitors, your career page is the starting point of the whole candidate journey. Your website is the first port of call for many candidates who are looking for more information about your company. That’s why it’s important to make sure that your website career page is up-to-date, informative, and easy to navigate. Spend some time reviewing your website content and assess how well it communicates your employer’s brand and value proposition. Also, take a look at the overall design and user experience of your career page. Is it mobile-friendly? Does it reflect your brand identity? Is the application process straightforward? Make sure to address any pain points you identify to improve the candidate experience on your website.

Use Employee Advocacy to Promote Your Employer’s Brand

Employee advocacy is when your employees promote your employer’s brand on their personal social media channels. It’s a cost-effective way to amplify your reach and improve your chances of being found by top talent. According to the Hootsuite study, 52% of employers say that employee advocacy is either “somewhat effective” or “very effective” in improving employer branding. Employers can encourage their staff to share their experience as an employee as well as the company’s activities, updates, blog posts, etc., on their personal social media channels as a way to spread the spirit and culture of their organization. This provides prospective candidates with an insightful glimpse of what it is like when working for you, and it may somehow inspire them to learn more about your company.

Make Use of Employee Referral Programs

The employee referral program is one of the most populous methods to attract and acquire talent with 70% of employers using them to source candidates. Employee referral programs work by incentivizing your employees to refer friends and acquaintances who they think would be a good fit for your organization. Not only are referred candidates more likely to be hired, but they are also more likely to stay with the company for longer. By implementing employee referral programs, you can shorten the time-to-hire as well as save resources spent on recruitment activities and advertising.

Polish Your Brand Image on Social Media

No other better place to bring your brand closer to the potential candidates better than social media channels. Almost 90% of job seekers leverage social media in their job search. So, if you want to be visible to top talent, then you need to make sure that your social media presence is strong enough. Start by creating social media profiles for your company on the most popular platforms, such as LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter. Use these channels to share your positive workplace culture and updates about your company and job openings, as well as blog posts and articles that might be relevant to your target audience. You can also use social media to run targeted ads and promote your employer brand.

Be Mindful of Candidate Experience

Perhaps you do not know that 60% of job seekers acknowledge they have experienced a negative candidate experience when looking for jobs, and 72% of them decided to speak up publicly about their dissatisfaction. This means the experience you put the candidates through during the recruitment process partially reflects your corporate culture. And more crucially, the candidate’s experience may make or break the perception of job seekers about an employer. Unfortunately, a majority of employers are either a little bit too confident or too overworked to review their hiring process to identify what’s wrong with it or not. Over time, the unsolved issues may lead to more severe consequences, damaging the experience you offer your job applicants. Therefore, the HR department should incorporate candidate experience surveys as a necessary component of their full recruiting life cycle to constantly review and upgrade it per every candidate. You can utilize available software tools to simply design and customize easily as you want. Try bravoSURVEYS – the simplest yet most practical tool for creating surveys of all types.

Manage Company Reviews

Most companies care much more about what customers write about them than what their employees do, and they tend to ignore the feedback from current or former staff, both positive and negative. Based on the ReviewTrackers data, 94% of customers have avoided purchasing products or using services of a company due to its negative reviews. In the context of recruitment, things go in the same way. Nevertheless, your future employees are mindful of the public opinions about your company more than you thought. 

Do not look at employees’ reviews in a pessimistic way or take them personally. Instead, be receptive and assess the reviews about your company – even if they aren’t easy to hear – in order to figure out what the problems are and come up with pragmatic solutions. Acting upon the employees’ reviews does not necessarily mean compromise; it means you are an open-minded and value-oriented employer. This is what the magnetic energy top talent definitely looks for in their future employer, and you are the one. So, don’t leave the company reviews unattended. Manage them in a proactive way to make sure your employees are heard and the right things must be done to improve the workplace.

Implement SEO-Friendly Job Postings 

To ensure that your job postings are seen by the right candidates at the right time, employers should pay more attention to search engine optimization. This way, you can make sure that your jobs appear as high as possible in the search results when potential candidates are looking for relevant keywords. Start by using the right keywords in your job titles and descriptions. Use relevant industry-specific keywords as well as location-based keywords to make sure that your jobs appear in the search results of potential candidates who are located in your target area. 

Leverage the Power of Video Marketing

You must have heard “Content is king,” and you can make use of various forms of “the king” for recruitment marketing to gain the best results. Perhaps written content does not work for a folder of audiences, but video content will. Video content marketing is one of the most effective approaches to reaching and engaging the targeted audience in the long term, especially when people nowadays are consuming more and more video content than ever before. YouTube, TikTok, Facebook videos, and Instagram reels are where you can position your company image and promote your brand, of course, with interesting and engaging content. 

Employers can use videos to tell their brand story and highlight what makes your company a great workplace, as well as give the audience, especially the potential candidates, a glimpse of amazing things and moments that they don’t see every day from your organization. Regarding video marketing, it is crucial to focus on quality over quantity. Instead of trying to produce a large volume of content, the concentration should be on creating content that is high-quality and relevant to your target audience. You should also make sure that your videos are well-produced and offer value to potential candidates.

Participate in Job Fairs and Career Events

Attending job fairs and career events is a great way to connect with potential candidates face-to-face. Through job fairs or career events, you can approach the talent more directly and bring your brand value closer to the labor market. Also, through such activities, you are able to market your current open positions and collect resumes and contact information from potential candidates. However, taking part in job fairs or career events may be costly, and it also requires quite a lot of preparation, such as designing and printing marketing materials, researching the attendees, and so on. Therefore, make sure that you prepare everything carefully and plan ahead to make the most out of such an investment.

In a highly competitive labor market, a company that has a good recruitment process stands a better chance in the “war for talent” than one that doesn’t have one. We simply call it the hiring process, but do you know that there are different terms referring to it? Like what? Like, as the end-to-end recruitment process, the full recruiting life cycle, and so on. These terms are used interchangeably because they all describe the same thing: the steps involved in recruiting candidates from the time you post a job until an offer is extended and accepted. By understanding the recruiting life cycle, a company can be more strategic in its hiring efforts and spruce up its recruitment process. Let’s go.

What Is the Full Recruiting Life Cycle?

A full life cycle of recruiting is also known as the end-to-end recruitment process in which an organization tracks down, vets, and hires the most appropriate candidate for a job opening. A typical lifecycle often covers a multitude of stages and leads a job applicant through each before coming to a hiring decision of giving an offer, re-considering as an imperfect candidate, or rejecting.

From the employers’ point of view, having a clear recruitment lifecycle in place helps the HR department to systemize their hiring process and identify the areas for improvement and automation. Furthermore, the full recruitment life cycle provides you with insights into the performance and productivity of your recruitment team as well as understanding the challenges they are encountering. As such, you can offer them support and guidance to make it easier for all.

In the perspective of a job applicant, it is also beneficial as the candidates can follow up on their job applications to know where they are in the hiring decision. This is more critical than we think it is, but it often tends to be overlooked in a lot of organizations. According to Glassdoor, 80% of candidates decide to drop out of the application process when they find it too long and complicated. By having a clear recruitment cycle, you can picture the whole process and weed out the unnecessary parts to make it more concise and less troublesome for both employers and job seekers.

The Big 6 Stages of a Full Life Cycle Recruiting

A full life cycle of recruitment varies by organization, but it can be broken down into the following stages:

#1 Planning & Preparation

The first stage of the cycle is all about gathering information from the hiring managers and figuring out what your company looks for in an employee. This step sounds simple, but it is actually not. After confirming the job requisition, the recruiters have to sit down with the HR manager for the vacancy intake – a strategy meeting to discuss the goals that should be achieved during the recruitment process. Based on the consented requirements of skills, scope of work, expected personality, and capabilities, the recruiters can do their job of crafting a clear and inclusive JD that accurately reflects the ideal candidates. The more deliberate the planning and preparation are, the smoother your hiring process will be later. Once you fully understand the vacancy that you are going to fill, it is time to move on to the next step.

#2 Job Posting & Candidate Sourcing

In this step, the job description will be converted into a job posting, which provides the job seekers with an overview yet comprehensive understanding of the opening position. When the job adverts are in place, and the recruitment channels have been decided, it is time to source talent before you can “filter gem from stone”. 

In the 4.0 era of information and technology, employers and recruiters have to think outside the box to acquire talent than just the old-fashioned methods of job boarding. If not, you will be cast aside in the battle against other companies for top candidates. To save recruitment effort and cost, HR professionals are advised to embrace more creative ideas in talent acquisition. For example, you can leverage the social media platforms like LinkedIn and Facebook to approach more directly to job seekers. For example, you can simply start with diversifying the job portals. Also, you can leverage the social media platforms like LinkedIn and Facebook to approach more directly to job seekers. Or you can consider using employee referral programs and headhunting services to hunt down both active and passive candidates. Don’t forget about the internal recruitment when you have a great source of talent available right within your organization.

#3 Candidate Screening

Screening is always one of the most demanding and time-consuming stages of all. The ultimate goal of this stage is to identify and assess whether the applicants have what it takes to align them with the job opening. After this stage, all the most appropriate candidates will be shortlisted. Therefore, recruiters have to pay attention to the detail to vet the resumes and cover letters carefully. If recruiters entail more insights about the applicants, feel free to approach the candidates for a phone call or a quick video interview. Or, in the case when you find out “red flags” of job-hopping or employment gaps, don’t hesitate to arrange an in-person meeting to ask more questions.

In brief, think of the stage as a filter. Only the qualified candidates remain once it has been completed and move on to the following step. screening stage can be done manually, or it can be automated to be less stressful and more productive with the aid of pre-employment testing software. In addition to the hard or soft skills, recruiters can investigate the personality as well as interests of an applicant via surveys, questionnaires, or tests to speculate if he or she may become a good fit for your company. For example, you can consider bravoSURVEYS – an easy survey creator or bravoGROWTH – a personal reflection tool to explore one’s inner strengths and drive.

#4 Interviewing & Selecting

You have covered half of the recruitment life cycle, and this phase is about thorough interviews with the shortlisted candidates. Apart from what is written in the resumes, this is the time to evaluate a job candidate’s real performance and potential. Then, you can identify if a candidate is a right match for your organization in terms of core values and working style. The interview is not just about what the candidates say but also about how they behave. Also, don’t forget to take note of both verbal and non-verbal cues to better understand the job applicants.

During the interview process, it is important that you ask questions related to the job description and company culture, as well as behavioral questions, to test if a candidate has leadership qualities or problem-solving skills. For instance, you can inquire about how he/she handled difficult clients or resolved conflicts with colleagues in previous positions. Also, feel free to invite several members from different departments to attend the interviews so the results will be objectively measured.

#5 Decision-making

This is the most important stage within your whole recruiting life cycle. At this point, you must have got an idea of who to hire based on the insights and data you gain in the previous stages, but do not rush. To make an informed decision, involve your hiring manager or supervisor in this stage and ask for their input. Also, take into consideration the company budget, as well as the salary range that you’re willing to offer to the applicants. The next step is extending a job offer to your chosen candidate and waiting for his/her response.

For those who are not selected, it is advisable to inform them that they have not been successful in their applications. You can do this by sending them an email or giving them a call. While it is good to give feedback to all job applicants, make sure that you only provide constructive criticism to those who have reached the interview stage. A simple “Thank you for your application. Unfortunately, you are not what we are looking for at the moment” would suffice.

#6 Onboarding

Once the candidate has accepted the offer, recruiters can proceed to the last but not least process – onboarding. The onboarding process can be a bit overwhelming for both the employer and the new hire, but it’s important to make sure that the transition is as smooth as possible. The goal of the onboarding process is to help the new hire feel comfortable and confident in his or her new role. There are a lot of preparations to make in order to deliver the best employee experience for new hires from day 1, such as writing welcome emails, planning for an office tour, training, etc. To ensure that your new staff settle in well, you should have a new employee onboarding checklist with you so that you won’t miss any crucial step of welcoming newcomers. And this is the ending point of a typical recruiting life cycle. Please keep in mind that HR is an ever-changing landscape, so your optimal recruitment process now will not stay forever that way. Therefore, it is a must to keep an eye on the latest recruitment trends to constantly refine your hiring cycle in order to stay ahead of the competition.

Should you take the risk of hiring an imperfect job candidate? The debate around this question seems to go on forever, and there is no exact answer. In some cases, it may be worth taking a chance on someone with a few flaws, and perhaps the ones passing the lowest on the list may make even better employees. However, it does not mean that you should hire someone just to cover the gap, even when you know for sure they are not the ideal fit for the available position. The key here is to evaluate each situation on its own merits. Before deciding whether to choose a defective candidate or not, be sure to go by the following rules:

#1 There Will Be No Perfect-matched Candidates

Rule no.1, finding the perfect match for a job vacancy is nothing more than a myth or simply nonsense theory. In the majority of cases, job seekers will not tick all the boxes on your wish list, and that is something you should be aware of from the beginning. Of course, there are always a few candidates who come pretty close to what you have in mind, but if you wait for someone who meets all your requirements 100%, you might as well never hire anyone. This is because these types of candidates either don’t exist or are already employed.

#2 Trust Nothing But Data

Job seekers will often try to make themselves look as good as possible on paper. This is something you should be aware of when reading applications and resumes. In order to gain the full picture, you should always ask for additional information that is not included in the application. This might be references, certificates, or other forms of documentation that can verify what the candidate is saying. It is also a good idea to use different assessment methods in order to get a complete understanding of the candidate. This could be anything from aptitude tests and work samples to personality assessments and structured interviews. 

#3 Do Not Dismiss a Job Applicant Too Quickly

First impressions are doubtlessly important, but they are not everything. Just because a job applicant does not look the part or because he or she seems nervous during the first few minutes of the interview does not mean that this is not a good candidate. It is important to give each job applicant a fair chance and to assess all candidates on the same parameters. This means that you should not write anyone off too quickly but that you should instead focus on finding out as much as possible about each candidate.

#4 Measure Potential & Long-term Capacity of Growth

One or a few interviews and tests do not tell you much about a job candidate’s inner strength and the possibility of growth in the long run. Maybe at the moment, a candidate may be considered imperfect to the job description, but he or she is a quick learner with the determination to learn and the ability to develop over time. So, these candidates have signs of a “gem” you can “sharpen” in time. They may not be the best options for the position at first, but with some guidance and training, they can turn out to be your company’s most valuable assets. How can you tell? By looking for signs of determination, coach-ability, resilience, intelligence, and good character via their behaviors and responses to stress in different situations.

#5 Skills Can Be Taught – Character Cannot

Of course, it is always better to hire a job candidate who already has the required skills and knowledge. However, this is not always possible. In some cases, you might have to weigh between a candidate with the right skills and the wrong attitude and vice versa. When faced with such a choice, you should always go for the latter. This is because character traits such as motivation, work ethic, and team spirit are much harder to change than skills.

#6 Have Due Regard to EQ & Characteristics of the Candidates

This rule is not applicable if you are seeking a highly logical position that entails accuracy and persistence. Software developers, for example. However, if the jobs you have open are more emotional and creative, then you must keep an eye on the personality and emotional intelligence of the applicants. Good EQ and characteristics will be extremely useful in such positions as they entail a lot of social interaction, such as customer service and sales or managers and team leaders. So, EQ and characteristics are a big plus for flawed candidates with fewer skills. Pay attention to them before you make a hiring decision or rejection. A little tip here for you is to leverage the pre-employment testing software (E.g., bravoGROWTH – a self-reflection tool) or surveys to investigate the inner aspects of a candidate before you can proceed further with them or reject them.

#7 Do Not Hire Someone Just to Cover a Vacancy

Last but not least, it can be tempting to hire the first candidate who seems even remotely qualified for the job just to fill the vacancy. However, this is usually not a good idea. If you hire someone who is not a good fit for the job, it is likely that this will lead to problems further down the road. This might be anything from poor performance and low morale to high turnover and absenteeism. It is, therefore, always better to wait for a suitable candidate than to settle for someone who is not right for the job.   Assessing a candidate’s potential is not an exact science, especially as you are considering an imperfect one. An unmatched applicant is not a lost cause. If they have what it takes to develop into your ideal candidate, they are worth your investment. You should keep an open mind for such opportunities and give them a chance to prove themselves. You might be surprised at the results. Hope that these rules of thumb are useful for you to avoid wrong hires and also not to miss potential talent for your company.

Pre-screening job candidates are the starting point of a hiring process, but it is always a nerve-wracking process, isn’t it? It costs recruiters quite a lot of time and effort to get to know the applicants before proceeding to the next stage. Unfortunately, there exists an unreceptive fact that the conventional methods used in screening – resume vetting, background checks, and interviews (both structured and unstructured) – are no longer accurate. The results are often diverted from the initial goal due to a variety of reasons. 

According to research, 78% of resumes contain misled statements, while 48% tell lies. Not to mention that the applicants can totally exaggerate to justify they fit into the position; the unstructured interview assessments are often subjective and unconsciously biased, so they fail to predict the precise job performance. The structured interviews are a bit better, but it poses challenges on different fronts. 

Pre-employment assessment tools are being used by organizations of all sizes, particularly midsize and big businesses, to improve their recruitment strategy and automate their hiring process. 

What Is Pre-employment Testing Software? 

Pre-employment testing software is a type of assessment tool that helps recruiters to screen candidates more effectively. These systems are designed to resolve all the restrictions normally found in manual pre-screening and uncover the truth about a candidate’s skills, abilities, and potential fit for a role. More than that, pre-employment testing software can yield valuable insights into the personality, characteristics, and even behavioral traits of a candidate. This proves to be extremely useful to thoroughly evaluate an applicant to decide if he or she fits into the whole culture of your organization or not, which will play a vital role in cultivating the employee experience and job satisfaction afterward.  

Benefits of Implementing Pre-employment Testing Software in the Hiring Process 

By applying software solutions in pre-employment testing, business owners and HR professionals can reap a wide range of benefits.  

Facilitate a More Efficient & Less Time-consuming Hiring Process 

The most significant advantage of pre-employment testing software is that it can significantly reduce the time and costs associated with screening candidates manually. Recruiters can use these systems to efficiently filter out unqualified applicants, which helps free much of the time that would otherwise be spent on reviewing resumes and conducting interviews. This would allow you to focus on interviewing only those pre-screened candidates who are most likely to be good fits for the role. In addition, online assessments are usually much cheaper to administer than face-to-face interviews.  

Deliver Objective & Accurate Results 

Following the scientific methods and principles, pre-employment testing is tasked not only for automation but also to eliminate personal bias and favoritism from the assessment process. The software will provide an objective evaluation of each candidate, so you can be sure that the best person for the job is being hired, regardless of any personal connections or other subjective factors. This means that you can have more confidence in the accuracy of the results, and hiring mistakes or wrong decisions are less likely to happen accordingly. 

Improve Quality of Hires & Avoid Wrong Hires 

Since assessment tools automate the repetitive manual tasks and secure the screening results, business owners are able to filter the best candidates who have what it takes to be successful in the opening position. Consequently, this would lead to an improvement in the quality of your hires. 

On the other hand, pre-employment testing software can also help you to avoid making bad hiring decisions by allowing you to screen out those applicants who are not a good fit for the role or company culture. This is because some assessment tools include questions that evaluate a candidate’s personality and cultural fit. Consequently, you can make sure that you are only considering those candidates who are likely to be a good long-term fit for your company, which results in reduced turnover rates – one of the biggest HR challenges of all time. By mitigating the wrong hires, your company can save a bunch of money and resources as well. 

Facilitate Better Candidate Experience 

Last but not least, pre-employment testing software can also help to create a better candidate experience. This is because most assessment tools are designed to be user-friendly and require a minimal time commitment from candidates. In addition, many assessment tools can be taken remotely, which gives candidates the flexibility to take the test at a time and place that is convenient for them. Moreover, conducting candidate experience surveys after you’ve interviewed an applicant, given them a job offer, or rejected them is a great way to not only succeed in the hiring process but also improve it over time. 

What to Consider When Selecting a Pre-employment Testing Tool?

Nowadays, there are many different types of pre-employment tests on the market with various purposes. Different businesses might have different needs, so it is important for you as a buyer to know what your business asks for before zeroing in on any particular software solution. These are a few crucial factors you should keep an eye on before you give an assessment a try: 

• Type of Assessment: There are various types of assessments, such as aptitude tests, personality tests, skills tests, etc. You should decide which type of assessment would be most helpful for your business needs. 
• Cost: Pre-employment testing tools can range in price from a few dollars to a few hundred dollars per month. You should consider your budget and choose a tool that fits within your price range. More than just money, you should also consider the ROI and balance between price and value in your choice.  
• Ease of Use: The pre-employment testing tool should be easy for you and your team to use. It should also be user-friendly for applicants so that they can take the assessment with minimal inconvenience. 
• Implementation: Some assessment tools can be integrated with your existing applicant tracking system (ATS), while others might require a separate login. You should decide which implementation method would work better for you and your team. 

bravoGROWTH – The Best Pre-employment Assessment Tool

This is one of the big four functions under bravoSUITE – the one-stop HR-specific software solution. Based on the RIASEC and MBTI tests, bravoGROWTH is a personal reflection tool that helps businesses to explore the inner drive and motivation of job candidates and employees, thereby unleashing their true potential in the workplace.   Why choose bravoGROWTH over other assessment tools? Through the test results, you “read” the respondents at a higher level through their personality types, strengths, weaknesses, or even hobbies or habits, which is a solid base to decide how to deal with them and suggest areas with space for improvement. More than just simply testing the respondents, bravoGROWTH measures the results and delivers the analyzed data to employers. As such, employers can filter the best fit from a pool of candidates or better manage their staff and motivate these individuals correctly. Responsive to all users, bravoGROWTH offers a simple yet comprehensive interface and the best experience. If you need a software solution that relieves your HR team from inaccurate and error-prone manual pre-screening, then bravoGROWTH is one indispensable tool in your kit.

In a rapidly digitalizing world, the way we recruit and find top talent is changing just as fast. And imagine just missing a beat, then you may end up falling behind in the race for talent. Therefore, employers should always stay up to date and be receptive to the latest things in the HR sector. Compared to the predictions made on talent acquisition in 2022, a few of the current trends in HR recruitment are believed to change, while some others are expected to grow and become mainstream in the near future. Looks like it does not take long until we are finally revealed the future trends that are about to happen in 2023. Let’s predict what trend is going to shape the future of HR recruitment.

Work-from-home Culture Turns from Nice-to-have to a Must?

No need to be an expert to be able to tell this scenario is soon to happen. Working from home or remote working is some kind of a luxurious strange definition when it comes to working. That’s only until the global pandemic – Covid 19 – came in and reshaped how businesses operate at the end of 2019. The Covid-19 pandemic has forced organizations around the world to allow their employees to work from home. And while some may return to the office post-pandemic, many will continue to work at least part of the time remotely. This means that employers will need to adapt their recruitment strategies to attract and retain top talent who may not be interested in a traditional 9-to-5 office job. Unsurprisingly, a work-from-home or hybrid culture will soon become mainstream as flexible benefits, and more organizations, especially those in Asian countries, will have to embrace this “new normal” one way or another if they do not want to be cast aside.

Gig Economy & Gig Works on the Rise?

The traditional model of full-time employment is no longer the only option for job seekers. In recent years, the gig economy has exploded, with more and more people opting for short-term or freelance work arrangements. And it doesn’t look like this trend is going away anytime soon. A study by Intuit found that by 2020, 43% of the workforce will be freelancers.

This growth in gig work presents both opportunities and challenges for employers. On the one hand, gig workers can be a cost-effective way to fill specific roles or meet spikes in demand; on the other hand, managing a workforce of gig workers can be complicated, and it can be difficult to build a strong employer brand when your workforce is constantly changing. As stated in the beginning, this is not a new trend, but it will keep on expanding and become ubiquitous in 2023.

Company Reviews Matter?

In the interconnected world nowadays, shoppers check testimonials before making purchases, and job-seekers also check company reviews before applying for a position or accepting an offer. It is totally understandable. Reviews can offer an inside look at what it’s like to work for a company – employee experience, and they can be helpful in identifying red flags that may not be apparent during the interview process.

A study by Bright Local found that 84% of people trust online reviews as much as personal recommendations, and Glassdoor’s 2018 Employment Confidence Survey found that 69% of job-seekers say reviews influence their decision to apply for a job.

With this in mind, it’s no surprise that employer review sites are on the rise. Sites like Glassdoor, Indeed, and Niche allow employees to rate their companies and CEOs and share anonymous insights into what it’s like to work there. These sites are becoming increasingly popular with job-seekers, which means employers need to be aware of what their employees are saying about them online. Therefore, in 2023, employers must technically watch out for the company as well as invest more in employer branding to keep their presence afloat in the labor market.

HR Automation Keeps Expanding?

No doubt about it. We are living and running business in a digitalizing world where technologies empower nearly everything and drive people to change their behavior. The same goes for HR, which has seen a dramatic increase in the use of automation over the past few years.

The rise of artificial intelligence (AI) and automation is changing the recruitment process as well. AI-powered chatbots can screen candidates, identify potential red flags, and schedule interviews, while automated reference checking and background screening can save recruiters hours of time. For example, the Resume Parser – an AI-enabled feature of bravoTALENT -enables HR professionals to extract resume data automatically within a few clicks, so there will be no need for manual screening.

In addition, AI can be used to create targeted talent pools and generate personalized candidate recommendations. And as AI becomes more sophisticated, it will only become more deeply integrated into the recruitment process. While some recruiters may be worried about being replaced by machines, the reality is that AI can make recruiting faster, easier, and more efficient. Not only AI but more advanced technologies will be implemented into human resource management and recruitment now, in 2023, and even in the further future. Stay tuned until then.

Talent Shortage Is Real?

It is. The war for talent is only getting more intense, and companies are feeling the pressure, especially those in the IT industry. A recent study by Deloitte found that 58% of companies are struggling to find the right skills, and this number is only going to increase as the economy continues to strengthen. Thus, this rising scarcity in human resources in the following years is projected to get even worse, resulting in higher salaries and more competition for top candidates. So, employers should be prepared for challenging situations by starting investing more into creative recruiting ideas and methods from now on.

There exist a stereotype that “recruiting” and “talent acquisition” are synonyms. While it’s not true, they both focus on hiring amazing people but differ from each other in approach. Recruiting simply comes as a short-term process of choosing an individual for an available role. Talent acquisition, on the other hand, requires a more long-term plan of identifying, recruiting, and retaining human resources.

It’s of indispensable necessity to understand the distinction between these two approaches to bring more productive talent to your business or organization.

Our today’s article will look at the major differences between recruitment and talent acquisition. Then, we’ll point out which strategy you should prioritize as well as recommend a powerful HR tool to maximize your talent acquisition.

What Are the Differences between Recruitment and Talent Acquisition?

Recruiting refers to the process of sourcing, profile screening, interviewing, selecting, and hiring candidates to fill in available job vacancies. Everything is standardized and HRs just need to follow this pre-defined process when there is a staff turnover or business expansion.

Talent acquisition concentrates more on positioning a company as an attractive destination for top talent. To achieve that, companies must go through a strategic process that helps identify, attract, onboard, and train the best employees. Besides a hiring plan, you need to centralize recruitment marketing, employer branding, and even performing talent analytics.

That’s said recruiting is a subset of talent acquisition.

Differences between Recruitment and Talent Acquisition

There are some significant differences between talent acquisition and recruiting that you should pay attention to when considering one of these 2 hiring strategies for your business.

Basically, recruitment is an action of solving an immediate problem which is filling an open position. When you successfully hire an employee, your job is done there. Talent acquisition, meanwhile, is a whole strategic approach to developing a talent pipeline, from hiring to retaining.

• Branding Marketing

Employment branding should be taken into account when it comes to attracting talent. You may not notice but nearly 7 out of 10 job seekers will refuse a company with a poor brand reputation, even with a high income, according to a study from MRINetwork.

Talent acquisition requires you to build a corporate and positive company culture to deliver a good experience for candidates. Although recruiting also forms a good culture for your business, TA makes it more long-term.

• Involvement

You can distinguish recruiting and talent acquisition based on the steps involved in their processes.

When an HR staff plans to recruit someone for a vacancy, they need to post the job on the company website or job boards, source and screen resumes, interview candidates, conduct talent assessments, and select and hire one of these qualified people.

Talent acquisition does more than just hiring people. Their main goal is also to engage, retain, and develop these candidates so they can contribute to the success of the company in the long run.

• Planning

Recruiting ends right when you hire someone and have them onboard. However, talent acquisition needs more planning. You have to look at and predict trends in the job markets. For example, if there is a growing demand for employees in a specific field, the TA team should be aware of and stay ahead of that trend to acquire the best talent for the company.

• Knowledge

When hiring a person for the company, recruiters aren’t forced to fully understand the job that they attempt to fill, but talent acquisition is. They just need to gather some information from department heads and come up with a job description.

TA demands more knowledge and assessing skills to ensure the candidate is a good match for the position and company culture, including their experience, interests, and preferences. Not only does it help reduce the turnover rate but also saves time and money to rehire.

• Candidate Sourcing

Recruiting and talent acquisition search for talent and sourcing potential candidates in the same way which is from various sources, from career pages to job sites and job fairs. Then you’ll contact them and offer them the job.

Out of the box, talent acquisition goes further than that. Your job focuses on building relationships with candidates. Even if they fail your requirement or refuse the offer right now, it doesn’t mean you completely lose them. You can keep their contact for future opportunities.

Why Should You Prioritize Talent Acquisition over Recruitment?

While both talent acquisition and recruiting are critical components of any organization’s staffing strategy, the former should be given priority over the latter.

Several reasons motivate you to do that, especially when plan to:

• Grow your business quickly – Your company can’t look forward to a fast-growing future without taking advantage of a solid talent acquisition strategy. It allows reducing the risk of hiring the wrong people or losing your culture.
• Attract niche talent – Specialized industries like Technology, Medicine, Finance, or Legal require candidates with the right skill set. Fortunately, the TA team with enough knowledge and understanding about the job can identify the right people. Plus, employees in these hot niches are often in high demand, that’s why you’ll need a talent acquisition strategy to stand out from competitors.
• Grow your talent pool – A talent acquisition strategy gives you a helping hand in growing and nurturing your candidate pool. As a result, you can have more available options to choose from when in demand.
• Make faster and better hiring decisions – Since you already have a long-term plan, talent acquisition makes it simpler to proactively find the perfect fit for your vacancies.

Jumpstart Your Talent Acquisition Strategy

Recruiting scrutinizes candidates to see if they’re a good fit for the company when talent acquisition convinces talent that your company is the right place for their career expectations. And that’s the critical difference between these two hiring strategies.

Talent acquisition has been increasingly popular thanks to its outstanding benefits over recruiting. However, it requires some marketing efforts and the right tool to build a strong and effective talent acquisition strategy.

bravoSUITE provides you with an all-in-one HR platform for your talent acquisition. It is of help to not only acquire the right people for your organization but also understand and develop their strengths, engage employees, and make critical decisions via valuable insights. Curious about how the tool’s power in creating your talent acquisition strategy? Don’t miss the chance to register for our 21-day free trial!