During times of increased demand for talent, you have to be creative, or risk being overlooked by those who could make significant contributions to your company. For example, when Elkay faced high demand in the market for our pioneering ezH20 bottle-filling stations, we had to find a way to secure top talent fast without sacrificing quality within our recruitment process. To do this, we had two strategies: leveraging technology and mobilizing our people. The power of these strategies can be used in just about any industry to acquire new talent. Consider trying the following to super charge recruiting at your organization:

LeverageTechnology to Streamline Processes

These days, technology is advancing every day, and candidates expect potential employers to be up to speed. Over the past few years, Chatbot website features have grown increasingly popular, but it's only recently become a resource that talent acquisition teams are utilizing. At Elkay, we use a chatbot on our website to screen and qualify candidates before moving them to another stage of the hiring process. When candidates utilize the chatbot to apply for an open position, they are asked a brief series of questions regarding their skills and experience. If their responses to these questions meet a certain threshold, the chatbot technology automatically schedules the candidate on a designated recruiter's calendar.

When prescreening becomes an automated process, candidates can be engaged on a 24/7 basis and scheduled for interviews quickly and efficiently. In addition, this process creates agood experience for candidates, given its simplicity and straight forward structure and recruiters, as it streamlines previously tedious screening and scheduling processes and makes time for additional recruitment efforts to be built out.

“To leverage the power of employee referrals, businesses must motivate their people to share their experiences and assist with recruitment efforts”

Additionally, utilizing video conferencing tools like Zoom further streamlines the hiring process. By using this tool, recruiters can schedule candidate interviews quickly and with more flexibility for both parties regarding time and location than the traditional in-person interviewing process. As more and more companies begin to adopt a hybrid or remote workplace model, video conferencing technologies also allow recruiters to expand their reach and effectively interview candidates located in other parts of the state or country quickly. Moreover,these technologies allow for interviews to take place safely during uncertain times, such as a rise in COVID-19 infections or inclement weather conditions, making them a timeless addition to any company's talent acquisition processes.Utilizing video conferencing as part of the recruiting process also signals to today’s tech-savvy workforce the company’s willingness to embrace virtual communications to support essential day-to-day activities – a critical foundation of today’s popular “hybrid” work environment.

ApplySocial Media Marketing Tools

Good recruiters know that social media is a hub of potential candidates. However, tapping into these candidates requires a different kind of recruiting strategy. To develop an effective social recruiting strategy, business leaders should partner with their internal marketing team to become aware of the options available on social media that can be used for recruiting purposes. These options can include targeted social media campaigns, sponsored and dark advertisement placements, and everything in between. Your strategy can also include posting open positions on social media sites such as LinkedIn and Facebook in addition to the company's website and job listing outlets like Indeed and Zip Recruiter. By adding these listings to another site, recruiters expand their reach of potential candidates while increasing their company's overall visibility within the social media platform.

No matter the medium, having an informed social recruiting strategy can help businesses reach new potential candidates where they areand engage them in ways other companies may not be doing. This will provide your business with a competitive edge over others within your industry and may attract more top talent over time.

Mobilize Employees to Make Referrals

At any organization, your most powerful asset is your people. Their unique experiences working for your company can be a powerful tool to communicateits value to other people. Combine that with the impact of word-of-mouth marketing (which is still the most impactful form of marketing!), and you have a pretty foolproof way of recruiting new candidates. The only obstacle in your way is motivation within your people to help out.

To leverage the power of employee referrals, businesses must motivate their people to share their experiences and assist with recruitment efforts. At Elkay, we have developed a robust employee referral program that allows people to refer interested candidates in exchange for a monetary reward. During times of increased hiring demands, we raise these rewards to encourage our teams to reach out further into their networks and help the company fill open positions. By taking this action, companies can show employees how much their efforts are valued and gain access to top-quality candidates that are most likely a great fit given their association with a current employee. As a result, when hiring demands rise, companies can spend much less time and money on recruiting efforts while maintaining or increasing effectiveness by tapping into their employees' networks.

All in all, the effectiveness of recruitment efforts lies within your business's recruitment strategies. By creating timeless tactics that leverage the latest technologies, social networking sites, and the power of your people, you can help bring your business to the next level now and in the future.