3 TA Hacks for a Country Full of Opportunity

While recently driving cross-country, there was one thing I noticed that applies everywhere – everyone is hiring. With that being said, I have 3 suggestions for Talent Acquisition and Human Resources teams, as well as individual recruiters: audit your processes, treat your people well, and tell your story thoroughly to anyone who will listen.

Audit your processes. Think about how and where your candidates see your messaging. Is it memorable? Is it accessible? Are you providing them with a complete message? For example, while driving 85mph down the highway, I passed a lengthy, 22-word billboard containing a complicated vanity URL that I did not have the chance to read all of, nor could I remember. Guidelines say that there should be no more than 8 words on a billboard, and the URL should be something related to your company. Imagine being the trucker trying to read and take note of that billboard – there was too much going on and nothing stood out.

In another situation, I stopped at a national restaurant chain with a ton of signage in and around each of the 3 locations I stopped at. The signage included a space for what I presume was supposed to be a unit number to be entered, printed with “text code [blank] to [number] to apply now”. To experiment, I tried out the number that was provided on the sign, and found that when I didn’t enter a keyword or a code, I received multiple error messages.

In addition to these two specific situations, I’ve come across an astonishing amount of inactive or just outright broken “Apply Now” QR codes, or other steps throughout the application process implementations that were broken. These are the basics, and we should make sure we’re at least doing the minimum.

Treat your people well. Also along my drive across the United States, I encountered a number of various business locations with signage saying something along the lines of, “Temporarily closed, no staff.” While it is important to generate new candidate activity at the “top” of your funnel, it is even more important to keep other parts of your funnel from leaking. The average hourly hire costs $4,400 just to recruit, while we are also told that salaried hires cost $11,500. With those numbers in mind, it should be a no-brainer. If those are the numbers for new employees, imagine what it would cost you and your organization to replace qualified, skilled, trained workers. Watching your employees list all of the reasons they are turning in their resignation will be difficult, and I struggle to feel empathy for both resigning employees and the organizations they are resigning from.

Tell your story to anyone who will listen. Your Employee Value Proposition (EVP) needs to be broadcast loudly – make sure everyone knows about it. Candidates want to know what’s in it for them if they are given the opportunity to join your organization. Before they even make it to the application process, they’re looking to see how your culture aligns with theirs, and whether or not they should spend their precious time applying to work for your organization. If they’re unable to determine your EVP from your website, they likely won’t find any information about your organization’s culture, DEIB initiatives, community/philanthropy, or anything else they’re looking to learn about.

With all of that being said, recruitment at its core is about honesty, integrity, and detail orientation, and candidates deserve those characteristics in their experiences. I know my team at NAS Recruitment Innovation, our work, and the recruitment marketing process improvements we deliver to our partners and to candidates’ lives.

It’s our passion.
#75YearsProud

• Recruiting in tough times: A conversation with HR thought leader Steve Browne
• Google may rule, but Bing can also bring it.