If you think a  recruiting process for good candidates has been brutal last year, just wait and see what would happen in 2016.

Trying to hire the brilliant candidates will be a massive challenge this year, no matter the size or location of the company. Unfortunately for most recruiters and hiring managers, 2016 is going to be even tougher as corporate pressure mounts to draw candidates whose skill match the demands..

The way the recruiters attract and retain highly talented employees has become one of the major priorities for HR of any company. The competition for brilliant talents is growing and answer to that must be in reducing the disconnection between talent requirements and the strategies and processes which underpin them.

I know that all of this sounds like a very hard thing to do. Don't worry. I maybe don't have the magic bullet to slay this dragon, but I can share great hiring strategies with you.

1) Stop blaming  talent shortage

Recruiting may seem like a very complex process because you think that there is a shortage of talented candidates, when the real problem is how and where you search for them!

I often hear executives and hiring managers complain about the skills shortages that their company is facing. I think that this so-called “talent shortage” applies exclusively to companies with poor recruiting process.

As a corporate leader, you can’t blame the marketplace for any shortage of customers, or top candidates at your company. It's pure and simple, that is a recruiting problem.

For example, you have a software development firm and need to hire a good programmer. If there was a real shortage of programmers, then you should ask yourself this question, “How many qualified programmers live or work within 50 miles of your company?”

If the myth of the talent shortage was a real deal, the answer would be zero. But the actual answer to this question is almost universal, so you can often hear that  there are thousands of them, but they all are currently working for the competition.

One of the reasons why your competitors manage to "catch" the most desirable candidates  is that they know the best location where they should search for most desirable talents.

In 2016, you can forget about Craigslist, CareerBuilder, or Monster etc. You'll have to do things differently and embrace creative recruiting if you want to reach your dream candidates. Try to add interactive group interviews to the recruiting process and to actively look for talent in unusual places.

One more thing, you need to make your business stand out from the crowd and connect you with your ideal candidates.

2) Focus on skills assessment while hiring

Accurate assessments mean the right candidate for the job.

Focusing on skills assessment and using reliable recruiting tools during the hiring process can dramatically reduce the hours and money spent on recruiting.

Most of the recruiters thinks that the only way of getting to know the candidates better is by meeting and talking with them during an interview. I think this is a quite outdated method (hire people only based on the interview) and if you want to find the best hires in 2016, you need to use pre-employment skills tests and job simulations first and then interview only people who actually have the appropriate skills for the job.

Companies like Google use various assessment techniques along with the interview process.

Using pre-employment skills tests you can quickly narrow down the number of candidates and simply focus on those who show the best potential.

You can create your own tests that incorporate disparate skills tied to a specific job. Also, you can administer job simulations to narrow the candidates who will succeed on the job in order to avoid the possibility to hire someone who can turn out to be a bad fit for the position.

Remember: Although implementing these recruiting tools may cost a little up front, you’ll end up with the best people for the job and good retention.

3) Keep job descriptions concise - don't ask for the moon

The purpose of the great job descriptions is to attract quality candidates and help them find your job post among a bunch of others.

It should contain:

• The working title – should be based on the main function that potential candidate will have. It's very important to be very specific and to appropriately describes both the role of the job and the level of responsibility.

• The position details – should contain general information about the job such as requested classification, the job description summary,  pay range, percentage of effort, etc.

• Required skills: It should clearly list the required skill sets. For example, if you are hiring a Category manager for IT category, then add “IT category expertise” to your skill set requirements.

If you write the good working title and detailed job description, you can find the best possible match to a job seeker’s query.

I can't think of a better way to save precious time if you avoid unnecessary further clarifying the nature of the work that you offer.

4) Build your network even when you are not hiring

Building and maintaining a good professional network is a continuous process, it doesn't happen overnight. It takes time and effort to identify people who you would like in your network and stay in contact with them.

If you are the hiring manager, you can develop your professional network and stay in contact with people even when you are not hiring. You can talk to people and share information with them. That is the good way to get to know them a little better and maybe pass them a job offer when you need just that kind of person with matching skills for some position you need to fill.

Networking can be pretty effective mean to explore hiring market and learn something about potential candidates for the job you may offer in the future.  A good network can be an integral part of your hiring strategy.

5) Sell the position to candidates

If you (like most of the recruters) think that an interview is only about the candidate convincing the employer to hire them by talking about skills he/she has, you are wrong. It's also very important for the employer to sell the opportunity to the candidate. Too many hiring managers focus only on evaluation of the candidates and just don’t talk enough about potential benefits of working for their company.

In my opinion, the main reasons companies constantly lose good candidates lays in their inability to sell the position to candidates.

Make sure to mention to candidates any kind of benefits your company can provide to them. You can talk about common things like health benefits or stock options but that would be enough to sell the position to demanding candidates in 2016. They are more concerned with things like work/life balance so you need to offer them flexible working hours for example. Depending on the industry, you can also talk about special trips or bonuses for top performing employees or offer them special discounts if they work for you.

And last but not the least, ask candidates questions about what reservations they have about the position and work with them to find a solution.

Remember: Don’t miss the chance to have top candidates because you’re not able to sell the position to them.

6) Ensure that your brand is well represented

It's the fact that most people buy brands, not products. The same thing is with candidates for job. They often prefer one company over another based on the brand image that company projects. For example, about 3 million per year of people apply for a job in Google

Why do they pay so much attention to the brand?

Candidates look for a company with the brand they’d be proud to be associated with. Most of the top talented people would notwant to work for a company who doesn’t have a good brand image.

Making and representation of the brand starts with the images and messages the company projects in its job posts. Next important thing is to make sure the candidates are contacted and treated well by the company. For the company which projects itself as having highly talented employees need to have a process in place that supports that assertion. Everything within it should speak of this, from your head hunter’s proficiency to the paper you use for notes.

Put your brand message not only in words  but in actions and accessories. A well-branded company should have its' own image, just like a charismatic leader. It's also very important that that image is unique.

Regardless of industry or size of your company,  employment brand is your greatest resource when it comes to recruiting. Besides that, retaining your greatest employees is also very important. Speaking of engaged employees, if  they love their job, they will talk about it. That way, they can be the biggest advantage for your firm when it comes to filling your talent pool. Also, if you want to get the attention of potential candidates for the position you need to fill, you must become an attractive employer and "sell" your company to them. So, it's very important to deliver what you promised and your company will build and retain positive reputation. As an employer, you should invest in your employment brand in order to have good recruitment process.

7) Consider a mobile hiring strategy

We all know that technology is constantly has changed the life we are living now. Smartphones and tablets are taking over our daily lives so you need to chang the way of searching for good candidates for the position you need to fill.  

Without any doubts, mobile recruiting will be an important fraction of hiring strategies in 2016. and will open the new generation of hiring.

90% of job hunters are now using mobile devices during searching for a new job opportunity.

One more thing in favour of mobile recruiting platforms is that they are helping candidates to easy connect with the hiring managers and have the quick response to their job applications. This way mobile recruiting can remove the barriers and drastically simplifies the application process. Because all of that, job hunters prefer to use mobile recruiting sites instead of search for the job by sitting in front of the computer. An easy application process can help recruiters pile up more qualified passive candidates which are probably employed and too busy to look for new and better job opportunities.

8) Start using social media

Start with active using social media and increase the chance to get the best candidate for the position you need to fill. Take the talent search in your own hands and meet the potential candidates on LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, etc. and find out which of them match the criteria that you want for the position.

You should consider using LinkedIn, Brazen Careerist and/or other similar websites that allow candidates create profiles and include their resumes and other details about them. That can be useful for recruiters so they can understand better knowledge and talents of potential candidates. On that kind of social networking sites, you can see conversations that candidates have with others and discover what are theirs contributions to big-idea discussions. This way you will have the chance to learn a little more about people before you  interview them.

9) Creating better relationships with recruiters

The hiring managers and recruiters share the same goal and that is to fill positions with top talent. Unfortunately, those two often end up frustrated with each other. That often happens because recruiters and hiring managers have different points of view and approaches when it comes to hiring. In order to help with problem solving, I give you four things you should do:

• Meet or talk on the phone with the recruiter to agree with job requirements.

• Prepare screening questions and interview questions together.

• Collaborate on ways to find the best candidates.

• Review resumes together and continuously talk about the criteria.

In the end, you are in control of the effectiveness of your hiring relationship with the recruiter and you need to make it as better as possible in order to help reduce your company’s time-to-fill.

10) Use video resumes as screening tool

Many hiring departments already know that video can be a powerful screening tool. The video resume can help you to easily identify soft skills of the candidates. It also can provide you with a base of touchable and relatable candidates which can help improve the screening process.

As I said before, hiring managers can often lose trust in recruiters because they simply can't always tell if the candidate is a fit or not based on 5-10 minutes interview. So, I recommend you to use pre-recorded videos during screening process because it allows you to have feedback on candidates before the candidate reaches the interview stage.

Because you have to look at things other than experience for filling the position, video screening can help you identify quality and other soft skills much more easily than any other method. So you don’t need to call and screen 150 people. You can identify a potential candidate  in 5 minutes and set up an interview immediately.

As Scott Weaver, Director of Talent Acquisition and Development at the Cumming Corporation once said: "Our average time-to-fill across the company is 37 days, but with Video Screening we filled an internship role in 16 days”. This method can work because every candidate has access to some kind of web camera and know how to use it.

If you use video screening as your hiring strategy, I don't see the possibility that it fails.

Conclusion

As the economy continues to boost, more firms  are increasing their business activity and need to hire additional employees to keep up production. This is the great news for the companies so many of them will want/need to hire more employees, but they maybe don't manage to find out what are the new and better hiring strategies. If you are on of hiring managers who works for som company like that, use these 10 tips and I am sure you will make your hiring process much better.

Hireo would love to a part of your 2016 hiring strategy. See how Hireo procurement recruitment services can help you with hiring your next rockstar!