Did you know that the current average annual turnover rate in 2023 stands at a staggering 57%?
In today’s competitive job market, attracting and retaining top talent can make all the difference in a company’s success. However, many businesses struggle to attract, secure and retain the best employees, leading to lost opportunities and decreased productivity. Your recruitment process could be playing a key role in this, and if so, is well overdue for a review.
What is talent engagement?
Effective recruitment advertising is the key to attracting a large number of candidates and goes a lot further than just advertising your vacancy on a series of job boards. Once you have a list of applicants, the next phase in the recruitment process is Talent Engagement. This includes actively connecting with and evaluating potential candidates to identify who’s going to be the right fit for your organization.
Talent engagement is a critical part of the recruitment process. It involves attracting quality candidates, shortlisting applicants, then selecting potential hires who not only have the necessary skills and experience for the role but also align with your organization’s values and culture – adding to its longevity.
This often includes in-depth candidate assessments, like behavioral interviews or skills tests, to evaluate a candidate’s fit with your organization and the specific vacancy. By focusing your time on the most qualified candidates, you can save time and resources while also increasing the likelihood of making successful hires.
The most successful recruitment campaigns combine targeted recruitment advertising and talent engagement tactics to save time whilst ensuring they help make informed hiring decisions with longevity.
Why is talent engagement important?
Talent engagement has a multitude of benefits for your organization:
Higher ROI and Faster Hiring: With the right support and tools at hand, talent engagement can significantly improve the ROI (return on investment) of your recruitment process. In a survey of more than 1,100 HR and talent acquisition professionals conducted by Spark Hire, 84% of respondents said that they’re actively trying to improve the time to hire. In today’s fast-paced job market, a lengthy hiring process can mean losing top candidates to your competitors. Watch Spark Hire and Scout Talent experts discuss how employers are navigating complex hiring challenges to get candidates from application to offer in half the time without sacrificing quality.
Be the Employer of Choice: Engaging with your talent pool creates a positive candidate experience whereby your candidates feel seen, heard, and respected. This positions your organization as an employer of choice in their mind, enhancing your employer brand. This can have positive run-on effects for future hires – approximately 75% of job seekers are likely to apply for a job if the employer actively manages their employer brand!
Better Hiring: Talent engagement enables you to gain a better understanding of the candidate’s goals, motivations, and personality, which can help you determine whether they’re a good fit for your organization. Selecting candidates who’re aligned with your culture and values can aid their engagement at work, their productivity, and longevity in their role.
Combat Unconscious Bias: Talent engagement can help you to craft a more inclusive hiring process free from unconscious bias. For example, introducing skills assessments to your shortlisting process creates a fair and accurate benchmark to inform your hiring decisions.
8 Talent engagement activities that get results
Scout Talent’s team of Talent Engagement specialists can help you drive your strategic growth through a series of personalized, in-depth talent engagement activities. When you launch a recruitment campaign with us and include talent engagement solutions in your package, you gain access to a dream team that knows how to unlock the right talent for your organization.
1. Campaign kick-off call to understand your ideal candidate
The recruitment campaign kickoff call is the first step to gaining a deep understanding of your vacancy and ideal candidate. We’ll ask targeted questions to learn about your company’s culture, the skills and experience required for the job, and any other specific requirements you may have. This ensures that we have a clear understanding of your recruitment needs and can tailor our services accordingly.
2. Custom interview guide to ensure candidates align with your needs
We work with you to design the “one best way” to interview candidates so that we can ensure they align with your organization’s needs and values. This ensures that all candidates are asked the same questions and evaluated using the same criteria, making the selection process fair and consistent.
3. Stay informed every step of the way with our recruitment CRM
Every client who launches a recruitment campaign with Scout Talent gains access to our Applicant Tracking System and Recruitment CRM, :Recruit Essentials, for 12 months. With our platform, you retain full visibility of all applications, even as our team works to screen and shortlist your talent pool.
4. Rating and ranking applicants according to your ideal candidate profile
Our rating and ranking service helps you to pick the best applicant from your talent pool. We evaluate each candidate against your key selection criteria defined and rank them according to their performance. This helps you to make informed decisions about who to invite to the next stage of the recruitment process.
5. Save time with two-way screening interviews
Our team of Talent Engagement specialists conducts two-way video interviews with your top candidates, saving you time and providing a more efficient way to assess candidates. Our specialists ask tailored questions to evaluate candidates against your selection criteria and provide valuable insights that help you make informed hiring decisions.
Plus, we take care of all the candidate communications on your behalf, ensuring a great candidate experience that enhances your reputation as an employer of choice. All candidates receive consistent communication via email and phone so that they feel informed and respected.
6. Increase hiring confidence with pre-employment checks
Candidates who are aligned with your organization’s culture and values are likely to be more productive, enjoy more job satisfaction, and have a longer tenure. Asking behavioral questions during the interview process, or implementing behavioral assessments as part of your process, can help you gain these important insights for fair and accurate shortlisting. We offer a range of pre-employment checks through our marketplace of top-rated software providers.
7. Review a meticulous shortlist of top candidates
Our team provides you with their expertise to guide your selection process. We’ll help you to identify the top candidates in your talent pool, based on their performance in the interviews and their fit with your company’s culture and values.
8. Retain access to your entire talent pool
Although we help you to select the best candidate, you retain full oversight of all the available candidates. You also retain access to your entire talent pool, not just the top candidates, and can draw on this for future hires or make additional placements in the future.
Plus, you can automate your talent pooling process with :Engage, a powerful tool to help you connect with your active and passive candidates and entice them to future opportunities.
Kickstart your talent engagement today
Scout Talent offers a more strategic approach to hiring through a powerful combination of target recruitment advertising and talent engagement activities. By leaning on our team of experts, you can improve your hiring results without driving up the time to hire.
If you’re looking for support engaging top talent, get in touch with us today to learn more about our talent engagement solutions. With a strategic approach to advertising your vacancies and engaging with highly-skilled candidates, you can look forward to better hiring results.
