New Hope For Hiring Realized
The good news: 85% told us they’ve increased hiring. That’s from nearly 100 out of 1,200 HR and recruiting leaders and their teams who attended our first virtual conference of the year March 17-18 called New Hope For Hiring in 2021.
74% said they would be ramping hiring in the next 6-12 months. More good news.
We also asked attendees what has impacted their business and brand, and recruiting and hiring, the most in the past 12 months.
Their answers:
- COVID-19 – 89%
- Economic fluctuations – 54%
- Social unrest – 23%
- M&A Activity – 12%
- Leadership changes – 13%
- Changes on the recruiting team – 13%
- New product/service launches – 14%
Lastly, we asked them how they’re marketing their business, brand, company culture and open jobs:
- Social media – 95%
- Job sites – 78%
- Emails – 60%
- Videos – 47%
- Employer review sites – 47%
- Talent communities – 42%
- Career site promotions – 34%
- Texts – 31%
- Company awards – 25%
- Chatbots – 9%
Our first virtual conference of the year was all about employer branding, recruitment marketing and target sourcing — and the speakers, panelists and sessions did not disappoint.
Mike (Batman) Cohen, Vanessa Raath, Melkeya McDuffie, Elaine Orler, Dorothéa Bozicolona-Volpe, Adela Schoolderman, Kimberly Jones, Katrina Kibben, Brian Fink, Michael Goldberg, Lori Sylvia, Alex Her, Marvin Smith, the Avera Health sourcing team, all our CandE sponsors and so many others definitely brought the insights and the recruiting vitamins and minerals as I like to say.
As for the attendees, they brought their own wisdom to the conference. For example, speaker Vanessa Raath asked an open-ended survey question during her session:
What do you think is the best way to attract Talent online?
Here are just some of the attendee answers:
- Personal outreach backed by solid online brand
- Maintain a positive, employee-focused image
- Social Media Marketing
- Strong online presence on multiple platforms that consists of quality, informative content
- Authentic representation of who you are, lots of activity to drive people to see it
- Virtual engagement with existing employees/recent hires
- Authentic brand and culture storytelling using original content
- Create personable job descriptions
- Company transparency regarding job responsibilities, benefits and compensation
- To connect on a level with a candidate to make them feel comfortable and remember your conversation
- By personalizing/connecting messaging to the candidate
- Real – evidence video, real virtual interaction with employees and leader – e.g. QA sessions, webinar
There were nearly 100 answers in all, and what I liked about most of them was the focus on transparency, authenticity, personable communication, and of course, a better candidate experience. Even in a recruiting and hiring world where we’ll continue to depend more and more on automation, the human connection should never be cut. Our hope is that the millions still out of work will find it again in 2021.
We also announced our new professional development scholarships for Talent Acquisition professionals currently displaced by the COVID-19 pandemic, who are unemployed and looking for work to take our Candidate Experience Certificate of Learning Program.
Our next virtual conference will be titled Diverse and Inclusive Recruiting, Hiring and Candidate Experience and run May 19-20 from 11 AM ET to 3 PM ET. Registration is now open!
Lastly, if you’re interested in participating in our 2021 CandE benchmark research program, click here.
Be safe and well.
Kevin Grossman, Talent Board President
