3 Of The Best Changes Your Hiring Process Needs For 2017

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This new year has many changes in store — a new U.S. President, new HR compliance laws and, hopefully, new quality employees coming aboard your team. But with 46 percent of U.S. employers reporting they are having difficulty filling jobs — an all-time high since 2007, according to ManpowerGroup’s 2016/2017 Talent Shortage Survey — you too may be experiencing trouble finding the perfect new hires for your company.

The most important part of hiring this year is being in tune with what job seekers want out of their job search. Companies that are turning the tables and making the process candidate-focused are able to get one step closer to finding candidates with the proper skills and personality to match their culture.

Follow these three easy steps to make 2017 your best hiring year yet:

Quick, easy, interactive process

Job seekers don’t have a ton of time to spend on the application process because most already have a full-time job. Also, thanks to the evolution of technology, everyone expects an immediate and interactive experience.

Facebook’s new “jobs” feature aims to meet all of these needs for employers and job seekers. A spokesperson said this about the testing stage, “Based on behavior we’ve seen on Facebook, where many small businesses post about their job openings on their business page, we’re running a test for page admins to create job postings and receive applications from candidates.”

The new feature will focus on options like allowing pages to formally share a job opening with related details like job title and salary. Special formatting could differentiate job postings from other content and attract busy eyes among the crowded news feeds. Using a more active page like this allows for increased interaction, real-time updates, answering questions, and interaction with job seekers.

Although most companies send an immediate, canned “thank you” response to applicants, a recent Talent Board survey states nearly half never receive an indication of the application’s status, or information about why gender, race, and ethnicity questions were asked. They also don’t have the option to save their application for a later date. These are just a few of the issues today’s applicants are running into when applying to jobs.

The future of job search lies in one featured location where job seekers can easily learn about a position and company, get answers to their questions, and apply easily. With 67 percent of social media job seekers using Facebook, according to Jobvite’s Job Seeker Nation Study, this new feature could be the start of a hiring revolution.

The company is just as important as the job

The new job seeker isn’t just looking for a way to pay the bills — people want to work for a company with shared values. More and more candidates are searching for and interacting with companies on social media to better understand their personality, goals, values, and how they treat employees before clicking ‘apply.’

Millennials are the newest generation to fully enter the workforce and they’re not going to accept an offer from just anyone. In fact, a survey of 7,700 millennials from 29 countries around the world conducted by Deloitte, found 56 percent have ruled out working for an organization because of its values.

Whether it’s the actual listed values and mission on your website or it’s how your company presents itself on social media, make sure you’re representing it in the best way possible to job seekers.

Make the culture and what’s important to the company easily visible by posting pictures of the staff doing fun teamwork activities, the leaders participating in volunteer work, or even allow current employees to post what they love most about their job.

All about relationships

Networking became popular years ago, especially when LinkedIn came on the scene, but it continues to grow. Employers are finding some of their best employees come from referrals. A 2016 survey conducted by SilkRoad found that while job search engines lead to the most job interviews, employee referrals lead to the most hires.

This year, don’t spend all of your time on career sites — branch out and focus on building relationships with candidates. Keep in touch with applicants who impressed you, but didn’t quite make the cut for a previously posted position. You may end up with the perfect opportunity for them in a few months, and you’ll already have a quality candidate in the pipeline.

Take on 2017 with a new attitude towards hiring. Get out, network, and meet with talent at networking events, friends of current employees, or those making brilliant comments on your social media posts. Focusing on what candidates need and want from the job search, and future employers, will get you one step closer to building a quality team.

What changes do you hope to see in your hiring process in 2017? Let us know in the comments below!