Are you Ready to Capture the New Talent?

January & February months are typically known as peak job-hunting seasons. Besides the unemployed candidates who were sadly affected by the recession in the last year, many other quality professional candidates will join the job hunting market in the next few months. Are you ready to snatch up the new talent before your competitors do?

It is a known fact that many employed candidates either resign from their jobs at the beginning of the New Year or actively start pursuing lucrative alternative opportunities after they have enjoyed their extended holidays on their year-end bonuses. While 2009 saw many unemployed and retrenched job seekers - both skilled and un-skilled - join the job market, the New Year is always the best time for recruiters to start stocking up on the new talent quickly.

Here are our top 10 tips for ensuring that you don't lose out on the new gems entering into the job market:

1. Budget for the peak-season: It is always a good idea for employers and recruiters to budget a little extra for recruitment sourcing and branding in the peak season. If you have not already done so, then you should immediately shuffle your expenses around to see where you may be able to pinch a penny or two to increase your activity and awareness in the market - your competitors will be doing so and so should you.
2. Get access to online CV databases: Many companies may already have a relationship with an existing service provider, however during the first quarter of the New Year employers and recruiters should be tapping into all available sources of candidates to start building up your own databases early on in the New Year.
   
3. Increase your brand exposure: If you are a hiring company or a recruitment agency then the New Year is the ideal time to step up your branding advertising activities. This does not necessarily mean you have to spend a fortune on above-the-line mass media advertising. By simply increasing your online activity on Blogs, Social Networks and low-cost brand advertising on a number of job portals, you will quickly become top of mind to both active and passive job seekers. If you are able to do so, advertise on a number of different job portals and recruitment websites not only on one, as this will limit your exposure to only a certain segment of the market. Online advertising is by far cheaper than traditional advertising and if you shop around, you will find that you may be able to target your brand to a very niche audience.
4. Advertise your jobs to be seen: Don't rely purely on search or head-hunting recruitment tactics this year. Professional passive candidates will only know about your opportunities if they can see them. If you rely solely on searching databases and don't advertise your jobs you are missing out on a large portion of the skilled market, which may just be the portion in which your ideal candidate exists.
5. Use brand to attract talent: Those job seekers affected by the recession as well as your more professional, up-market candidates are often hesitant to apply to job advertisements that don't publicise the employer's brand. Job Seekers are three times more likely to apply to a position if they know who the company is. Brand attracts talent, so use it.
6. Tap into the passive market: Some job portals such as Jobs.co.za are able to simultaneously promote your job advertisements on your website, on their job portal as well as on extended job search engines, social networks and Google. Their technology automates the entire process and targets contextually relevant audiences by taking your job ads to the passive candidates. Given the rise in social and search engine recruitment, your company should be at the forefront of this technology.
7. Promote your job ads on your website: If you do not have a website, get one. You can set up a very functional and user-friendly website at very little cost. Secondly, get your job ads onto your website. Most online recruitment companies and job portals provide a service to their clients whereby they will automatically post your job ads from their website onto yours. Alternatively, if you already have your job adverts on your website then you can enquire about them automatically pulling your job ads onto their website without you having to capture it twice. You increase your reach and brand exposure by promoting your opportunities on various job portals.
8. Build relationships with your future candidates and clients: In addition having your own careers website, you should consider setting up a company blog. This provides you with an informal environment in which to communicate with your clients and candidates on a range of issues and industry related topics. It is also an ideal platform for existing employees to talk about the company's culture and benefits, thereby attracting future talent to the company through conversation. Other means of reaching future clients and candidates is by establishing an informal, interactive presence on social networks such as Facebook and LinkedIn. A Facebook fan page gives the company a personality and allows future candidates and clients to engage with you in an informal manner. LinkedIn allows you to position yourself as a professional or expert in your field while simultaneously building up your network of future candidates and clients.
9. Become smarter at filtering: There are a number of tools available in the online market that provides recruiters and hiring managers with the ability to pre-screen applicants and filter out unsuitable matches. Some tools also provide auto-matching of job specs to available candidates in a CV database. These tools aid in significantly reducing your recruitment screening time and allow you to become more proactive in your recruitment activities, thereby delivering the ideal candidate to the hiring manager faster - and before your competitor does.
10. Deliver a service: Regardless of whether you are dealing with a candidate or a client, it is essential that you treat both with equal amounts of respect. Give your candidates and clients regular feedback and treat them all as professionals. You never know when an applicant may become a client. This is the most important tip that we can offer!

Author: Gillian Meier, CEO of Jobs.co.za
Website: www.jobs.co.za | Email: info@jobs.co.za | Tel: 011-367 0001