The New HR
Publié le 27 April 2017
The New HR
Recruiting has evolved enormously over the last ten years. Such constant advances have driven HR departments to adapt again and again to keep up with new trends. The value of a well-established business is currently gauged via three main characteristics: its brand, its intellectual property and its people. Developing a sound business rests largely on competent staff as well as collaborators who are attached to the brand: the latter’s daily involvement is an important factor in establish company image. The social media have brought about a realization of these new realities within Quebec’s business community.
Using the Web to Attract New Talent
Training new staff is costly. Before making such a major investment, you need to make sure that you’ve targeted recruits with the skill set that your business really needs. This is no easy task at best but in a context of full employment, it’s much harder to know where to begin. The solution is seduction: attracting the right people with that special je-ne-sais-quoi capable of luring them away from their current job and into your company. This level of allure requires well-defined branding both on your company website and in your social media campaigns.
Needless to say, job seekers today expect your business to be living on the Internet at all times. A business with zero web presence may as well not exist at all. Whether through job search platforms such as Jobillico or via search engines on the web, your web presence is your best strategy to attract the right talent.
The Evolving Role of HR
Until fairly recently, an HR staffer was expected to deal with relations between employer and employee, labour laws and regulations, hiring, salaries and pay, social relations within the business, fringe benefits and whatever managerial work came with all this.
Today, however, HR departments need to combine pedagogical and marketing approaches in their work. Understanding the stakes and challenges for the business as well as developing a long-term global vision have become necessities. Company branding and values must stay in focus at all times. A business now needs to sell itself rather than act in a passive applicant selection role.
“For us, communicating the values of the organization is a responsibility that is shared by marketing and HR so that employees may transcend our values and so, our brand.”
-Stéphane Jean, VP Marketing for Jobillico
Whoever is in charge of HR needs to bring digital technology into the equation for optimal recruiting. More than 80% of job seekers use the web in their search. Which platform is best equipped to meet the recruiting needs of your business? Should you invest in digital advertising to get better visibility for your job postings? As mundane as these questions may appear on the surface, they have far-reaching implications. The answers may well impact applications on a job posting which in turn impacts your ability to hire qualified people and, ultimately, your bottom line. In this day and age, recruiting cannot be handled by luddites; technology has definitely replaced the classifieds.
Likewise, the number of applicants is no longer the defining factor in getting qualified people. The perfect match between employer and employee has become the new standard and is made possible by the greater precision of web recruiting. The relationship has become symbiotic: fulfilling employment improves employer branding and vice versa. This is the fundamental reason why a web presence and sustained efforts to be appealing are essential to quick and effective recruiting.
Investing in Web Advertising to Find the Right Talent
To reach your recruiting goals, choosing the right web platform and means of advertising will make all the difference. An employee who walks away or negatively impacts performance inevitably incurs a cost to your business. Reducing this cost means reducing the time you spend in recruiting. Being ready to post online at a moment’s notice and on the right platform is critical. There are means to recruit in this proactive manner. One is to collect resumes year-round, whether you have a vacancy to fill or not. Another is to have a way to search among potential candidates on the platform even if they haven’t applied on the job you’ve posted. However you approach it, a proactive strategy gives the best odds of finding just the person you need.
Another consideration is whether you’ll assign some of your advertising budget to various media in an effort to gain visibility for your postings. Google Adwords, Facebook and LinkedIn are great solutions to attract potential candidates. Precise targeting of the right audience is a must here. It’s easy to spend money on digital advertising and get a disappointing return on your investment. When this happens, it is likely that the ad was badly targeted or that your web site doesn’t meet job seekers’ expectations.
It is possible, on the other hand, to mount campaigns targeting people who have seen your job postings before. This is what web marketing jargon calls ‘remarketing’. With this strategy, available with Google Adwords and Facebook Ads among others, the job posting is presented again to people who have viewed it in the hope that they may see it in a different light the second time around.
Measuring Impacts
Any advertising investment should be subjected to a rigorous analysis both during and after the ad run time. The challenge here is to look beyond the mere numbers and derive some understanding from them. A posting that hasn’t been viewed a lot, for example, hasn’t necessarily failed. What matters is whether people who have viewed it have acted upon it by applying on the job or reaching out to you for further information about the job. The figures provided by Google Analytics or the reports from Facebook may be misleading if the stats aren’t interpreted properly.
To conclude, your active presence on the social media as well as advertising and online web recruiting platforms are tremendous assets in your search for new talent. New technologies are the solution if you want to make smart investments in your recruiting.
By Danny Kronstrom, Marketing Coordinator at Jobillico with Mylène Fortin, Web Contents Editor at Jobillico
