It’s A Tough Market Out There — Here’s How To Find Quality Employees Fast
If you’re currently hiring, you might have a harder time finding the right people for the job right now. The National Federation of Independent Business reported that 42 percent of business owners had unfilled job openings, and even of the businesses currently hiring, 91 percent claimed there were little to no qualified applicants for the positions they had to fill.
Everything from rising labor costs, to companies switching to hybrid work models, to supply chain issues have all factored into this in some way. But there’s some good news on the horizon — according to a CNBC and SurveyMonkey Small Business Survey, 25 percent of business owners are expecting their headcount to increase throughout 2022.
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With an economic downturn potentially on the horizon though, your company will need to get savvy about having an online hiring presence to find new employees. This means searching for candidates through online job sites, and social media. One of the best ways to find qualified employees online is through a job board such as ZipRecruiter, which can share your open positions on 100+ other job sites. 51 percent of job seekers prefer to search for work on online job sites, anyways, according to Glassdoor.
Meet the employees where they’re at and use these five key strategies to start posting job listings, screening for the right fit, and help fill the most important roles in your company. If you market yourself online well, you can find just as qualified candidates as if you were recruiting in person. Here’s what you need to know.
1. Join the Right Job Posting Sites
To find the most qualified candidates, make it easier on yourself and find employees online through job posting sites. No only are most job board sites free for job seekers (which incentivizes them apply), many job search sites offer premium services on the business end that you can use to filter for the necessary qualifications and have a resume database at your fingertips to find the right candidate. Some of the best places to find employees online include:
Indeed
Glassdoor
Handshake
Monster
CareerBuilder
SimplyHired
Ladders
There are hundreds of sites to choose from, but you’ll have to consider whether you want a site that lets you post job listings for free, or provides some more tools you can use to track applicants and help recruit faster through specialized paid services. Consider whether you want a volume of postings, or a specific way to track and filter for quality candidates.
We like ZipRecruiter thanks to their powerful matching algorithm and AI technology to create instant matches between your listings and the right candidates. Using information about a job seeker’s skills (such as education, skills, and experience), it can connect all kinds of businesses with millions of potential employees currently on the web through their browser site, mobile app, and email program.
There’s two plans available, a Standard and Premium job listing plan. While they don’t list their official pricing online, the Standard plan is for more budget-friendly hiring, and will give you distribution to 100+ job sites, unlimited candidate applications, and one reusable job slot. Before you starting looking over your qualified candidates, you can always try this #1 rated hiring site free with ZipRecruiter’s free trial plan.
2. Use Keywords to Your Advantage
Optimizing your job postings with keywords and phrases is important not only so that your listing will show up on the relevant online searches, but so your posting will be seen by as many relevant candidates as possible. While you may think that going broad in your job title and description will yield higher views, it pays to be specific in key areas of the listing so that only job seekers with the most relevant experience in their field will apply.
One way to do this is to go general in the job title, such as “Sales Manager” instead of “Retail Sales Expert,” but get specific in the actual description itself in terms of job-related duties, necessary skill sets, and tools. Check to see if your job posting site has customizable templates to help with this.
3. Build Up a Qualified Candidate Database
When you need to hire fast, searching for qualified candidates can be time-consuming — unless you have the right system in place. Building up a candidate database will help you keep information such as resumes, relevant experience, and contact details organized. Not only that, but maintaining a database will allow you to track and reach out to specific candidates you want to interview instead of waiting for them to apply to your specific listings.
ZipRecruiter does this well, with a smart, easy-to-use dashboard that helps you sort, review, and rate the candidates you’ve received. It also intelligently learns from your ratings and sends you similar applicants to the ones you liked. Their “Invite to Apply” tool also finds the best candidates for open roles before they even apply, showing past employers’ detailed information about the candidate. This includes experience, education, veteran status, certifications, and a rating indicating how strong a match they are for the role.
4. Utilize Social Media
Social media is actually where a good chunk of job seekers hear about job openings nowadays, so you’ll want to utilize it well in combination with a job board site to find the best candidates. Make sure to post current job openings on your social media feeds, such as Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn, and link out to your company’s page for applications.
Having a tougher-than-average-to-fill position? In the post-pandemic market, it’s bound to happen eventually. You can narrow your search for the most relevant candidates by joining specific professional groups for your field or area of interest on Facebook and Twitter to post your job listings, or using targeted hashtags such as #journalismjobs or #nycjobs.
There are also tools, like ZipRecruiter‘s “TrafficBoost,” that give your job posting a little extra boost, including increased placement and visibility across their linked job boards. TrafficBoost helps secure more eyeballs, too, since the tool will promote the position until it receives the number of views you’re aiming for (100-300 views per post), or for up to 30 days.
5. Check Out College Career Services
Don’t count out recent graduates from your job search — most U.S. colleges and universities either let you post job listings on their alumni websites for free, or partner with a job board like Handshake to target students with specific internship experience or from specific majors. Not only will you find unexpectedly qualified candidates, the school will help their students find ample job recruitment in this tumultuous time.
Contact your local university or college to see what kind of partnership you can strike up, or even go old school and see if their career services host any events, talks, or career fairs that you can participate in as well as maintain an online presence.
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