In-House Recruitment Live London Roundup

 

This week, Smart Recruit Online attended the In-House Recruitment Live Event in London. It was great to see some familiar names in the recruitment space and speak to those of you looking to improve your direct hire strategy with a platform like ours.

 

 

What really stood out was the great panel of speakers, covering all things from upcoming trends in recruitment, to how the pandemic has impacted the recruitment industry.

 

Here are just some of the key takeaways from the event:

 

Appealing to passive candidates

It is arguably a well-known fact in the recruitment industry now that the strongest candidates tend to be those only passively searching for a new role. In fact, this portion of candidates are thought to account for around 70% of the candidate market, often already in employment with your competitors.

 

The focus is now turning to ways to attract these passive candidates, and convincing them to apply for your opportunity. As passive candidates likely have little commitment to finding a new role, recruiters have been questioning where they spend their time, and what we can do to grab their attention.

 

The good news is that research has shown 80% of passive candidates are open to finding a new role, so cracking the code and getting your jobs in front of them in an effective and appealing way is well worth the effort.

 

The rise of social recruiting

In line with ways to appeal to passive candidates is the rise of recruiting via social media channels, like Facebook and Instagram. Think about it – how much time a day do you spend on social media? Typically, people spend up to 2 hours on various social media platforms, and this includes potential candidates!

 

In a very insightful talk, Richard Swenman from Adway suggested that targeting passive candidates through tailored ad campaigns is something for recruiters to consider. Seeing the same advert 10 times isn’t very effective in any case, and the same goes for advertising your job roles.

 

You should try and ‘seduce’ potential candidates with a mix of sponsored job adverts and a journey of brand messaging to build excitement around your brand beyond a simple job ad.

 

The power of automation

It goes without saying that automating parts of your recruitment process is a must-have these days. Automation was an extremely common theme throughout the event, both during the various talks and on many neighbouring stands.

 

This comes as no surprise, as not only does it save on time and resources, but it can also contribute to a better candidate experience, and reduce the risk of candidate drop offs as a result of a lengthy recruitment process.

 

Access Screening’s talk on Candidate Screening in 2022, presented by Joshua Welch, revealed that automation has become especially popular throughout the candidate screening process. This includes areas like completing references automatically online, and processing high volumes of documentation and passport checks.

 

The return to the office

As restrictions from the pandemic continue to ease, and the call back to work in the office becomes more prominent, many employers are seeing a shift in employee attitudes. Many are now hoping for more flexibility around working hours and locations, and are reluctant to return to the office full time.

 

This impact can be seen in more recent job adverts, with the benefit of flexible working being listed growing in popularity. Some speakers even suggested doing a competitor analysis before advertising your new roles, and observing if this is a benefit being offered, as it could win over potential applicants.

 

Building candidate relationships

The notion of a “candidate-driven market” was mentioned on multiple occasions throughout the event. This is again related to the need to appeal to passive candidates, and impress and win them over. Building candidate relationships is a key part of this, and some speakers suggested a more personal approach to candidate communication.

 

The importance of maintaining relationships with unsuccessful candidates was also highlighted, including how to go about candidate rejections. Letting candidates know you’re ‘still interested’ in them for future opportunities is a great alternative to an outright rejection, or no communication at all! Some even suggested making a phone call was more appropriate once candidates were in the final stages of their interview process.

 

Company culture

With the pandemic widely affecting how teams interact with each other, maintaining a good company culture has brought new challenges. Again, the importance of building and maintaining relationships between people was seen as paramount, especially when welcoming new members.

 

 

Setting aside time in the working day to have an informal chat and catch up via video call could make all the difference – Unilever Global Talent Lead, Charlotte Johns, referred to this as the ‘coffee line’, mimicking those short, but morale-boosting conversations you might have in the coffee line at the office.

 

Improving the interview process

Attracting and retaining passive candidates is one thing, but improving the overall interview process also had its place throughout various talks at the event. Interestingly, making the journey to interview as short as possible was mentioned, which ties in with the popularity of automating lengthy parts of the recruitment process.

 

Additionally, it was suggested that for more junior roles, one interview is enough to decide if the candidate would be a good fit for your company. When it comes to more senior roles, this is where you may want to lengthen the process a bit more.

 

Summary

We were very pleased to be able to attend the In-House Recruitment Live event, and interact face-to-face with everyone after so long. If you didn’t get the chance to attend and speak with us, we’d love to hear from you about your in-house recruitment needs.

 

Book a demo and see how we can help you quickly find and hire the best talent online for less.