A general candidate shortage does not mean that your business has to slow down. Here, we have compiled some of the ways to combat a skills gap in your recruiting.

Why a Candidate Shortage doesn’t have to slow you down

The return to work after the pandemic has been slower than perhaps many of us anticipated. Surprisingly, the lack of activity has come from the talent side of the jobs market, rather than from employers.

Hiring right now may be a seller’s market. But that doesn’t mean that you have to re-design your hiring strategies overnight. Have you found that applications have been less than forthcoming? In this post, we look at a few ways you can nudge your business back towards growth.

Broaden your horizons

A general candidate shortage could be the ideal time to broaden the scope of your business.

Finding a niche in recruitment can feel a lot like you are building and demonstrating expertise. That’s great. Specialist knowledge is invaluable in this industry.

But what if we called your niche your comfort zone instead? That doesn’t sound quite so positive, does it?

It’s all a matter of perspective – and finding what’s working. Although there is nothing wrong with operating inside a specialist area, it pays to broaden your horizons. At the very least, a secondary stream will provide you with stability during the lean times. At best, you could find your new area provides unexpected wins.

But how do you expand your horizons? It may mean a back-to-basics approach: adopting strategies that you’ve not relied upon since your early days as a recruiter. Head back to the open seas of recruiting – jobs boards and portals. Because not everyone is on LinkedIn.

eBoss has recently assisted several of our own clients with this very task. We launched eBoss 360° last month. This new product helps recruiters to capture new candidates more efficiently.

Read how eBoss 360° is transforming talent acquisition

write better job ads

If you are facing a lack of engagement, it could mean that your job adverts need another look. This is crucial because poor job listings will impact your performance, even when there is no candidate shortage.

It isn’t easy writing advertising copy that immediately pops. And capturing applications right now may be harder than ever. But, if your phone lines are dead and your inbox is empty, that is a strong sign that your initial point of contact is failing.

Job adverts are a form of outbound marketing. And outbound marketing requires the easiest on-ramps available. Put yourself in an applicant’s shoes: is it easier to apply for your job, or click off the page? You almost want to make your job listings so attractive that it is easier to respond to them, than to ignore them.

Looking for inspiration? Earlier this year, we gave a few tips on how to write better job descriptions for human – and robot – readers.

write engaging copy

You probably never had yourself down as a blogger or a social media influencer. But, if you really want to engage with existing candidates (and potential new applicants), then you can score wins by connecting on a human level.

Adding news pages to your recruitment homepage will increase the “stickiness” of your site. That’s the ability to retain visitors and get them to read multiple pages; not just the one they searched for.

Recruitment news pages also provide an excellent opportunity for you to demonstrate your own expertise through frontline experiences in the job market. You can even use your own business data to generate news stories of your own.

The by-product of adding fresh content to your website is that you will begin to boost your SEO score. This makes your site appear higher up in Google page rankings which, in turn, will enable you to attract more new visitors.

Acknowledge Change

We keep hearing how the pandemic has created a ‘great reset’ of day-to-day life. Last month, we looked at some of the ways this has impacted the job market and candidate experience.

Change has happened. You might not be happy about it; you might be delighted. Either way, you don’t have to embrace this change. You don’t even have to particularly enjoy it. If you find value in established methods and they bring results, then that’s fine. You do you, as they say.

But you will have to at least acknowledge that a major social change has already occurred. This will prevent you causing unnecessary damage to your own business.

Find ways to acknowledge a change in priorities amongst your candidates. Talk to stubborn employers who will grudgingly leave a vacancy open for six months instead of revising their requirements or their offering. Become a pro-active player in making change happen and creating a positive outcome for all parties. Whether that change was desired, or accepted grudgingly.

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