How do I get more candidates?

While I am combing through the different recruiting groups on social media, one issue that I am reading about more regularly is that the number of candidates to job ads has declined significantly over the past several months. This is something that I have seen myself as well. This remark made by an expert in the field of talent acquisition says it all:

"We have had a lot of difficulty with it, particularly ever since the last round of stimulus was distributed. I've been working in recruitment and human resources for about three years now, and I can honestly say that I've never seen such a significant drop in the number of applicants while simultaneously seeing an astounding surge in turnover and attrition. At this point, businesses are figuratively and physically asking individuals to come work for them."

Even though more businesses have reopened and more people are being vaccinated every day, this is still a significant problem that seems to be affecting a lot of enterprises. It would seem that a significant number of working people are evaluating their opportunities for employment in the post-COVID-19 environment.

So what should an employer do in this situation when there are plenty of positions available but no one is applying for them?

Increase Your Paycheck

To begin, I believe it should go without saying that in order to entice the job seeker of today, you need to provide excellent compensation and excellent perks. You'll need to compete with such salaries if you want to work in retail, where firms like Amazon and Target have raised starting pay to $15 an hour. My daughter has just switched jobs, going from one that paid $12 an hour to one that pays $15 an hour and is at a country club. According to her, it is a significant boost in weekly pay.

Buc-is ee's one of the retail firms that performs a superb job of paying its employees well (and uses this fact to its advantage in marketing). In the shops, there are signs that say "currently hiring" and explain out precisely how much money you will earn each hour:

Pay ranges from $13 to $15 an hour for cashiers and gift associates.

$15 to $17 per hour for food service, maintenance, or car wash.

$15 to $19 for the team leader.

$18 and above per hour for an assistant.

40+ hour workweeks possible.

PAID TIME OFF FOR A TOTAL OF 3 WEEKS: Make use of it, turn it in, and roll it.

Correct the flaws in your application process.

Second, you need to work on streamlining the application process so that it is both quicker and more user-friendly. Still requiring applicants to sign in before proceeding? Get rid of it right now! Still need a long application to be filled out? Shorten it! There is a good chance that the application process is discouraging individuals from applying. You need to go back and simplify it.

The process of applying for jobs is a numbers game. According to Appcast, the typical ratio of the number of visits to a jobs website to the number of applications is somewhere around 5% for mobile prospects. This indicates that the firm is losing 95 percent of the prospects with no method to get out to them if it directs candidates from a job board to their careers site to apply for jobs. Simply increasing this conversion ratio from 5 percent to 10 percent would result in an increase of 100 percent and would double the number of candidates you get.

Here is where automation in contemporary recruitment may be of use. According to Jonathan Duarte, the creator of GoHire, his company's platform has raised the application conversion rate for numerous companies by a factor of 500 percent. According to him, "it's reproducible, and anybody can do it with a low-risk, low-cost approach."

Try Out These Suggestions

In addition to technical solutions, there are a number of creative ideas that you may put into action in order to attract a greater number of applicants:

Utilize the power of influencers. Find people who are influential on social media in your field and recruit them to advertise your jobs and company culture. Take, for instance, the case of a nurse who has managed to amass 80,000 followers on TikTok. She has the qualifications necessary to be an asset to a travel nursing agency, where she might assist in marketing available positions.

Post your resume on the online employment board. An application tracking system is presented to the job seeker by the great majority of the positions listed on job boards (ATS). If you want more individuals to apply, you could consider having them apply on the job board. There is a firm called JobSync that provides this capability, and it enables you to carry out these actions on websites such as Indeed and Facebook Jobs while simultaneously transferring the data to your ATS. Even LinkedIn has its own own button to apply for jobs. Use it.

Make use of the reminders. Because the great majority of hits on your job advertisements do not result in an initial application, you may want to consider prompting those visitors to return. Text recruitment software platform Emissary.ai provides a solution that allows you to add a reminder popup after a few seconds that records the job seeker's phone number and then sends a daily text reminder to come back and apply for the position. You can get more information about this solution here.

Increase the amount of employee recommendations. Here is what I was informed by one of the recruiters that she did: "I came up with the idea for a marketing campaign titled "Become a Referral Hero," and I based it on the concept of superheroes. I have flyers and I distributed referral business cards to the staff so that they may hand them out to customers. I've set up a blitz incentive, in which, for example, if you recommend someone who gets recruited by a specific date, we'll purchase you a large screen TV as a thank you gift. Referrals from current workers have proven to be the most effective method for our company."

College and university newspapers. Look about advertising in the student newspaper and on the internet if you are recruiting in a location with several colleges. You might also collaborate with local sororities and fraternities to help spread the word.

Billboards. The usage of offline advertising methods is a strategy that is often underutilized. If you have never tried advertising using billboards before, doing so for the first time is an excellent opportunity to get some practice. Just make sure that the content is kept short and has a compelling call to action.

Virtual employment fair. You may put up your own online employment fair. There are a number of different providers such as Brazen that can assist you, but if you want a solution that you can implement on your own, you can just utilize Zoom. Check out the post I wrote on online platforms for job fairs.

Commercials that stream online. Streaming services like Spotify and Hulu have recently implemented self-serve ad systems for their users. Why not design an audio or video campaign to promote on these audience networks that are just coming into their own?

Groups on Facebook that are local. Daily postings of available positions in Facebook groups dedicated to the quest for local employment Within the context of the largest social network on the planet, these groups might be thought of as little job boards.

Think in terms of leads, not applications. You may use ad sites like as Facebook and LinkedIn to promote for leads, which are the contact information of potential customers. Trucking businesses do an excellent job of this by only gathering the most fundamental information, such as the person's name, e-mail address, phone number, and whether or not they have a CDL license. Even a single lead is preferable than having no resume at all.

Internal ambassador program. Provide your staff with incentives to post about the company on their own social media sites. Employees who meet these requirements at one company are included into a monthly drawing for a cash prize of $1,400. They are eligible for a second entry into the drawing if they additionally write about the reasons why they like working there.

Use temperatures. Collaborate with a staffing firm to assist you in filling open positions. Provide such employees with a review period of ninety days, and if they perform well, promote them to full-time status.

Launch your texting app. Some prospective employees respond much better to texts than they do to emails. According to Duarte from GoHire, "When was the last time you e-mailed someone under the age of 25 and had a response within a week, if they answered at all? Exactly! Outside of school, the only reason that members of the mobile-first workforce and the hourly labor have an e-mail account is so that they may join up for Instagram, Snapchat, or one of the other social networks. They do not read or react to any emails that are sent to them."

Donate money to high school sports programs. Get in touch with the high schools in the area and inquire about the possibility of sponsoring any of their athletic events. To assist in the process of recruiting parents to attend the game, you may even consider holding a job fair there.

Relocation. Prepare a relocation package of some kind in the event that the position is very difficult to fill.

Job wording. Rewrite your job descriptions by getting them rewritten by a copywriter you hire. Be sure that the wording in the ad is representative of the sort of applicant you want to recruit, and vice versa. When writing employment adverts, words are important.

Content. Begin providing guidance on how to conduct a job search on a corporate blog. Describe what it's like working at your firm in writing. Provide potential applicants with advice on how to make a good impression on your recruiters. Take an active role in promoting their overall success.

It is true that recruiting candidates is more difficult than it has ever been, but it is much more challenging for hiring teams who are forced to recruit using outdated tactics and technologies. Jobs are available in almost every industry these days, which means that yours has to stand out from the competition

You don't have to run a large business in order to take use of innovative ways of thinking and technologies such as automated recruitment and text messaging to communicate with potential employees. Improving or upgrading the technology that you use for recruiting will go a long way toward boosting the number of people that apply for jobs. Use your imagination, try out some fresh approaches, and see what ends up being successful.