Creative Recruitment Strategies to Manage a Job Applicant Surge

Time to read: 5 mins

Creative Recruitment Strategies Summary:

• A job applicant surge is promising, but is the talent pool filled with qualified applicants?
• Despite a candidate-driven market, companies are becoming more specified and trying to get the most out of their candidate search.
• Creative recruitment strategies attributed to a well established recruitment process effectively attract and engage candidates from the start.

Remote listings remain despite the pandemic leveling out. The desire for remote work has companies overflowing with job applicants to multiple positions. While still a candidate-driven market, companies are cracking down and not settling when it comes to the experience and requirements they seek.

A job applicant surge may seem encouraging at first, but is often misleading, especially for positions within creative, marketing, and technology. Candidates within this sector are on and off the market so quickly. Not to mention, a high volume of candidates increases processing and administrative duties that burden time. Time wasted often leads to candidates waiting, and candidates waiting runs the risk of “first picks” being unavailable.

Successful creative recruitment strategies thrive on process – rinse and repeat! A recruitment process that is optimized to attract, engage, interview, and hire the right fit always wins.

Knowing How to Search

First and foremost, define the position. Gather all the information from all parties involved in the search to understand what the perfect candidate looks like. Who is your team looking for? What does your team need out of this new position? The goal of this candidate search is to easily find the perfect fit for this position.

Once defined, set your list of job requirements and build your search off those requirements. Stick to those requirements as much as possible. Bending in the slightest might leave your new hire falling short, which would leave you to start you search over again. We always talk about the cost of a bad hire. Something else to consider is the cost associated with a position going unfilled all together.

Creative Recruitment Strategies to Hire Right

Staffing and recruiting is a human profession. Technology is nice. Automation is helpful. However, recruitment needs a human touch. Here are a few tips to help manage your workload when approaching a job applicant surge:

• Time Blocking: Plan your day accordingly and effectively to ensure you are dedicating time to the tasks that need to get done to find the right candidate.
• Communication Templates: If you find yourself sending the same language over and over, create templates in your email service provider.
• Schedulers: think Calendly. Offer an easy way for candidates to book meetings with hiring managers and recruiters. Beats the heck out of phone tag and ghosted emails.
• Streamline Application Process: Make it easy for candidates to apply, interview, do their paperwork and onboard.
• Referral Programs: High-value contributors tend to know other high-value professionals. Consider creating an employee referral bonus program that incentives quality referrals.

Tier Interview Method

With job openings going full-time remote, an applicant pool can grow to the hundreds in just a few business days for a single job. In effort to work efficiently, when being served high volume, the tactic of searching closest to the pin and working your way out can be beneficial to cut through the clutter.

1. Tier 1 Interviews – Search within the applicant pool for those that meet all the “must have” requirements.
2. Tier 2 Interviews – If no results render then create a list of three “must have” requirements and run the search again.
3. Tier 3 Interviews – Work through the remaining applicants, searching for those who match just two “must have” requirements.
4. Tier 4 Interviews – Lastly, sift through the remaining to see if any remaining candidates have transferrable skills for consideration.

If applicants are not interview worthy, then revisit the job title and job description, and test different variations. Ensure that the requirements are detailed and clearly explain what success looks like and how performance is measured in the role.

Get Help and Hire a Specialized Staffing Agency

If you are finding your candidate search particularly daunting – be it a job applicant surge, the lack of qualified applicants, or a highly specialized search – consider hiring a staffing agency. A specialized external agency already has the talent pool and ‘get it’ factor for specific positions. Recruiters can quickly separate the best from the talent pool, presenting the top selections. Internal recruiters are often easily bogged down by more niche searches, such as creative, marketing, and technology jobs. Specialized recruiters know how to properly manage high volumes of applicants and do so seamlessly with a streamlined candidate evaluation process.

To save money and time when hiring a staffing agency, engage one or two specialized staffing agencies. Be transparent about your exclusivity with your one or two agencies to show urgency and experience high priority service. With the staffing agency in your corner, you will see a decrease in your processing and admin burden as well as a decrease in time to fulfill your staffing needs.

Creative Recruitment Help with Profiles

Recruitment is a full-time job. Sometimes a search requires dedicated resources. Profiles has shifted to a fully remote staff, continuing to place candidates nationwide. We, ourselves, have navigated the shift, which makes us even more equipped to help in your candidate search, on-site or remote.

Let’s chat! Reach out for a consultative conversation.