A Payscale study shows that the 88% of human resources leaders admit that recruitment is their biggest challenge. The biggest concern in recruiting is finding the right talent that could be a good fit with the company, even before vacancies are available.

Talent hunting is a recruitment strategy that helps HR teams find candidates to fill current and future vacancies. Talent search strategies vary by industry and position level, but it's good to have a working framework that you can use to design a functional strategy for your brand.

This guide will provide you with just that. We'll help you go from being frustrated by your search strategy to being sure that you have the best candidates in your pipeline.

What is talent search?

Talent hunting is the process of proactively seeking and interacting with candidates to develop a wide talent pool. The objective is to ensure that the right candidates are selected to fill vacancies. This proactive approach to searching for candidates makes it easy to connect with 37.3% of passive candidates who are highly qualified, but who are not actively looking for work.

The talent search process, step by step

To search for the best candidates, you need a solid talent attraction process. It seems pretty simple: you post a job on a portal and you wait for the applications to arrive, right?

It doesn't work like that.

Below, we outline nine steps that will help you connect with the strongest candidates, and that will allow you to develop a more attractive company culture to attract highly qualified employees.

1) Build your employer brand

Simply put, your employer brand is your company's reputation as an employer. The best talent will want to work for your company if your employer brand is strong and positive. Here are some ways you can develop it:

• Share employee testimonials on social media.
• Provide an exceptional experience to candidates during their application and selection process.
• Pay attention to the reviews that employees provide about your company on specialized sites such as Glassdoor.

2) Create a job description

A job description should not be an exact copy of one that already exists in your company or even one similar to that of your competition. If you want to attract good candidates, you must have a description that precisely reflects what is required of the candidate within the current context of your company. The description you had six months ago may not be appropriate for what you need today.

Before you begin designing the job description, talk to company employees who will work with the person who fills this position. Ask them about their own roles and how this position relates to them. Get feedback from the description you designed to determine if something important is missing. Sometimes, this dynamic reveals that the new position is not necessary, but that the team needs a restructuring so that everyone can be more efficient in their position.

Remember to include benefits and salary information in your job descriptions. This is the information that candidates want and expect to find. In addition, such a strategy will help you attract talent and increase the company's wage bargaining power.

3) Define your ideal candidate

Once you've determined what's needed to do the job, the next step is to define the characteristics of the ideal candidate. These are the aspects that indicate whether a candidate will be successful in the position. There are three factors that contribute to developing this list of characteristics:

• What the recruitment manager wants to cover within their team. In addition to roles and responsibilities, it is important to understand the soft skills that the candidate must have to successfully complete tasks and work well with other team members.
• The experiences of people within the company who have been in that position (or have a similar role). Review your exit interview notes you've done with people who previously filled the role and ask yourself the following:

• What challenges did the employee have to face in that role? Your new employee should be someone who can face similar challenges.
• What other responsibilities did the employee have besides the main ones depending on the position? You should add them to the job description or consider whether another position should be created. It can happen that these additional tasks are too much of a burden for the employee and lead to job dissatisfaction.

• What is a star employee like in your company. You should look for your new hire to be a model of the same characteristics that your best employees have. Pay attention to the brand champions within your company and make a list of the characteristics that make them worthy of the title.

4) Expand the talent pipeline

Maintaining a strong talent pipeline with viable candidates is the key to strengthening your search efforts. It's not enough to have a list of names in a spreadsheet and call it a talent pipeline. Instead, you need what Alicia O'Brien, WilsonHCG's VP of Innovation, calls”talent communities”.

These communities help to nurture authentic relationships with the talent in your pipeline. Think of it as marketing content for candidates. This can be achieved through a constant flow of content relevant to the interests of each person or perhaps a series of spaces in which recruiters from specific companies interact with interested professionals. A relevant combination of content and events will help you build a thriving talent community that keeps your pipeline connected.

The trick is to create content that is both informative and engaging. Your goal is to position your company in the top-of-mind so that, when a vacancy opens, these highly qualified candidates are more than willing to access your interview.

5) Evaluate your list of potential candidates

Now that you're interacting with the candidates in your pipeline, you need to search and focus on those that fit the criteria you're looking for. Here are some questions you can ask yourself:

• Does this candidate fit in with our company culture?
• Will this candidate be able to face the challenges that this position entails?
• Will the company be able to meet the candidate's professional objectives?
• Is there diversity in the talent pool?

Either way, these questions should be considered as much as feedback from recruitment managers. The answers to these questions will allow you to review your search strategy so that you fill your pipeline with the best possible candidates.

6) Contact the best candidates

Since you've narrowed your list down to those candidates who really fit what you're looking for in an employee, it's time to contact them. Keep in mind that it's probably worth combining two contact channels (such as email and phone call). This will make communication more effective, increasing your chances of scheduling an interview.

7) Conduct interviews and evaluate candidates

Although recruiters are generally not involved in the interview and evaluation process, the company they represent may ask them to be part of this stage of the process, since they have direct contact with candidates. Remember to be aware of any biases you may have so that your recommendations are not influenced by them.

8) Start the hiring and onboarding process for your new hires

The deal is done: your recruitment manager is satisfied with the chosen candidate and the candidate is excited to start the new position. It's time to help your HR manager submit the contract and successfully onboard the new hire. The key word here is to help: you're helping to close the deal.

9) Collect feedback from the recruitment team and new candidates

Feedback is a key component of the recruitment strategy. You can use your observations, assumptions, and information to determine what worked and what didn't, but the best way to evaluate if your talent search process is working is to hear what your recruitment team and new candidates think.

You can send a feedback survey or talk to those involved individually and consider the following questions:

• What was the best part of the recruitment process and why?
• What was the worst part of the recruitment process and why?
• What else could the recruiter have done to help you through the process?
• What changes do you think we could make to improve the recruitment process?

The 6 main methods of searching for talent

The search method you choose depends on several factors: the level of position you need to fill, whether you want someone to work remotely or in person, etc. We've created a list of the six most popular talent search methods to help you choose the options that best fit your company's needs.

1. Social networks

One of the most popular talent search methods is social recruitment (also called social searching), and it's the process of using social media to find highly qualified candidates. Today more than ever, workers in operational roles are turning to professional profiles on networks such as Facebook. In fact, 41% of young workers are more likely to look for work through social networks.

(There are also tools such as Emi that help optimize the recruitment process on all your social media platforms.)

Advantages

• It reaches a larger audience, which is much better for mass recruitment. Your vacancies are more likely to be seen, since social networks are used by millions of people.
• If you've spent time building your employer brand on social media, you have a better chance of reaching passive candidates.
• You have more control. Instead of waiting for passive candidates to apply, you control how often you post content and this can result in a faster search.
• It's cheap compared to alternative methods such as job board subscriptions. Posting your vacancy on Facebook is free, and even if you choose to promote the post, the average cost per click is around $44.

Disadvantages

• It can involve biases (conscious or unconscious). For example, an employer may tend to choose a candidate who is more active on social media rather than one who isn't, even if that person isn't the best fit for the role.
• You're at the mercy of social media algorithms, which are constantly changing. These algorithms can affect the visibility of your posts if you rely on organic traffic instead of paid advertising to find the right candidates.
• If you don't have a strong employer brand, candidates may not be interested or aware of what you have to offer. As a result, your posts go unnoticed on social media.

2. Employment exchanges

Job boards and career sites are the two places where candidates apply most often. It's best to use job boards along with other talent search methods to help you build relationships with candidates, since some of the best candidates won't be actively looking for work on these portals.

Advantages

• Access to a wide audience of active candidates
• Some job boards use artificial intelligence to find candidates. In theory, this should result in the best candidates applying to the position.
• These are panels that provide you with information about the performance of your job posting. You can use this insight to make informed decisions in your future talent search strategies.

Disadvantages

• Job boards can be expensive. Some platforms charge per click while others charge per post or have a fixed cost per year or per month. There are even some platforms that use a combination of these. For example, Indeed has a sponsored posting tool, which employers can pay to make their publication more accessible. However, it also has a cost per configuration of the application, and a price that varies depending on the account.
• There is no candidate filtering process. Anyone can create an account and apply for the position, which results in a lot of applications from unqualified candidates and a lot of wasted time for your recruiters.

The best candidates for executive positions are less likely to use job boards — you'll probably find them using other talent search methods.

3. Employee references

Research conducted by Career Builders shows that the 88% of employees value referrals more than any other source of talent for providing quality in new hires. This is a talent search method that is worth your time and investment.

Advantages

• Employees understand your employer brand and how your company works. Their first-hand experience helps them recommend people who are more likely to fit in with the company.
• It reduces hiring time.
• If you have a referral program that involves a bonus, employee engagement improves as more employees will be willing to actively provide referrals.

Disadvantages

• A lack of objectivity is a possibility. An employee may suggest a friend or acquaintance, not necessarily because the person is the best person for the job, but because the employee wants to help that person enter the company.
• The employee may show favouritism for the referral, which can be a problem if the employee is in a senior or supervisory position.
• There are some instances in which the referee leaves the company if the referrer leaves.

4. Job Fairs

Job fairs attract multiple companies and candidates in one place. While job fairs make it easier to evaluate candidates in person before they even apply to a position, there are also some downsides.

Advantages

• It increases brand awareness.
• Niche-specific job fairs help you reach a diverse pool of relevant candidates.
• You can meet other companies in your niche.

Disadvantages

• Job fairs can become very expensive. You have to pay for space, marketing material, travel and lodging for your staff, and other expenses.
• Preparing for and attending job fairs is time consuming.

5. Recruiting software

Nowadays, sophisticated ATS work as a tool that contains everything for talent management, providing recruiters access to databases, organizing the application process and managing the onboarding of the new candidate.

Advantages

• The best recruitment software provides access to recruitment databases with highly engaged candidates.
• Save time by automating parts of your process. Improve hiring quality by standardizing each candidate's skills, knowledge and experience with position requirements.

Disadvantages

• Recruiting software can have technical difficulties, just like any other. To avoid that, it is recommended to choose software that is tested, reliable and from companies with a good reputation.
• The keyword filter in some software leaves a lot to be desired, and candidates with words used intelligently in their CV may appear first, even if they are not qualified. Avoid this by choosing a software that filters using highly optimized machine learning.
• Automated messages to candidates may appear robotic or slightly personalized. You can combat this by choosing software like Emi that prioritizes customization.

Recruiting software has evolved from the days when it was a tool used only to filter resumes, to being all-in-one tools, where recruiters can improve their process, access candidates' profiles on social networks and manage onboarding. This search tool can be your secret weapon.

6. Organized list of passive candidates

Your list of passive candidates are those who aren't actively seeking employment. You may see their resumes in your recruitment software or that you may have met them previously, but although they have skills that are relevant to your vacancies, they are not usually active candidates, since they have not applied for the position.

These are great tools to have on hand, since you never know when a person might be open to a new job opportunity.

Advantages

• You create a list of candidates that meet your criteria, reducing the need to build your talent pipeline from scratch.
• Passive candidates are often more aligned than active candidates with the skills and experiences you are looking for.

Disadvantages

• These candidates are not so directly attracted. Some may be comfortable in their jobs and aren't ready for a new one when you need to do the hiring.
• Getting the attention of a passive candidate requires more effort.

Coordinate and automate your talent search process with Emi

Talent hunting isn't a one-size-fits-all strategy. We've outlined a nine-step process that you can use as a guide to building the search strategy that works for your brand. The key is to do what really works for you and serves to attract and retain the best talent.

Emi is here to help you automate and streamline your talent search process. Request a demo to learn how we can help you.

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