Finding the right candidates boils down to amplifying job openings to current employees and leveraging their networks. To make best use of their resources, reduce recruiting costs and improve the company’s performance, companies need to engage internal candidates and referrals.
Nearly three in four recruiters say that finding top quality job candidates is their primary challenge, according to a 2014 Recruiting Trends survey. Other top challenges include filling roles requiring specific job skills, filling job requisitions in a timely manner and reducing time spent on sifting through resumes.
Recruiting top talent shouldn’t be a headache, especially with such a large network of employees that can refer quality candidates and move into new positions themselves. More than half of recruiters cite employee referrals, internal candidates and social networking as being top sources of candidates. They don’t just provide a bucket full of candidates, they’re top-notch candidates too.
The top sources of the highest-quality candidates, according to a Recruiting Trends survey, are:
- Employee referrals: 73 percent
- Career web site: 52 percent
- Online job boards: 48 percent
- LinkedIn: 44 percent
- Existing employees/internal hire: 35 percent
The numbers show that recruiters value referrals and internal candidates, so why aren’t more companies leveraging those resources? A lot of companies fail to use a unified recruiting strategy. Only 4 percent of organizations use a technology solution to identify internal candidates, with most relying on an internal career site, "asking around" or having HR identify internal candidates. Worst case, they don’t have a way to identify internal candidates, a category which unfortunately one in five organizations fall into.
Social recruiting plays a key role in hiring internal candidates and employee referrals. Yet almost half of organizations have applicant tracking systems with no social capabilities, according to Recruiting Trends research. Companies must ditch the archaic ways — spreadsheets and paper — of tracking applicants and employ a technology solution.
For hard proof of the value of a unified recruiting solution, let’s look at its impact on New Belgium Brewery. The third-largest craft brewery with 500 employees struggled with long lead times for recruiting talent, but that all changed once they employed a unified recruiting system.
New Belgium Brewery is now able to identify qualified candidates faster while collaborating with cross-disciplinary teams during the recruiting process to hire the best talent.
When companies turn to unified recruiting solutions, they see improvements company-wide. Here are some of the benefits:
- Visibility into internal and external talent pools
- Candidate pipeline using networks and social media
- Higher quality candidates
- Improved employee retention
- Collaborative hiring
Want to learn more about the capabilities and results of a unified hiring solution? Read the whitepaper "Tapping into the Recruiting Power of Existing Employees".
