Talent Acquisition Strategy – 2024 to Hire the Best Candidates (Updated)
Written by : Ginni Agarwal | On :22-01-2020
Talent Acquisition
2023 was a great year for HR recruiters and the unemployment rate was quite low. This trend will follow in 2024 but businesses have to up their talent acquisition strategy to hire the best candidates available. Most companies are looking to rectify or rather modify their plan for finding candidates if not done properly can cost your business time and money.
In this article, you will get to know about talent acquisition strategies for the upcoming year. Without further adieu, let’s begin:
What are the 5 Stages of Talent Acquisition?
Talent acquisition is the process of identifying, attracting, and hiring skilled individuals to meet organizational needs. The stages of talent acquisition vary but they can be outlined as follows:
- Planning and forecasting
- Sourcing
- Recruitment and screening
- Selecting and interviewing
- Onboarding
Innovative Strategies for Talent Acquisition in 2024
Say No to the Extensive Hiring Process
A lengthy process can be a turn-off for a candidate. The candidates will lose interest if the process is too long or complex. As there is an entry of new technology trends every day, HR departments should adapt to them. In the last decade, resumes were sent via mail or were advertised in the paper. Coming back to 2023, candidates are looking for a quick and easy way to apply for job postings on their smartphones.
The user experience a candidate receives after applying for a job is becoming important for HR. In the past, companies didn’t pay any attention to the experience of the candidate during the hiring process. If a candidate has a bad experience or finds it difficult while applying for the job, they can post a bad review on Glassdoor or social media channels. For businesses, this can harm their brand. So, in short, the hiring process should be short and as an employer, you must provide feedback to the candidate, whether it’s positive or negative.
Companies are Looking to Hire to Trained Candidates
Employers are getting smarter and they know the difference between talent and experience. For example, a guy having experience of 10 years in a specific skill won’t be preferred as they are looking for talents instead of experience.
When the company is in the hiring process, they have a list of requirements, but they won’t be able to find a candidate who checks every box. In this case, they will have to set for an employee that can be improved in various areas.
It’s easier to train them for new skills and tasks and companies are confident that after the training, the candidate would be an overall fit for their company. This trend will continue in 2024 to get the best candidates available in the market. Talent acquisition professionals will adopt this strategy for recruiting in 2024 and will be the future of talent acquisition.
Employer Branding Would be the Key
There is a difference between recruiting and talent acquisition, as the latter is a strategic function of the organisation and recruiting means searching for a candidate to hire for a specific position.
Employer branding is overlooked but is an important step to hiring top professionals for your business. Nowadays, candidates can search for employers online. With LinkedIn, being one of the best platforms to search for jobs, a candidate can easily dive deep into the company’s culture via events and images.
Companies with the help of marketing tactics can use social media platforms to their strengths and develop a strong employer brand that can get you better talent and long-term success.
Develop and Nurture your Talent Pool
Creating a robust talent pool, even during slower hiring phases, ensures a readily available source of potential candidates for your talent team to connect with.
In particular, this practice can assist you in identifying the top candidates within your database who are well-suited for new job openings that may emerge later on.
Establishing a talent pool is one aspect, but it’s equally crucial to proactively interact with leads by cultivating relationships through tailored messages. This includes personalized check-ins with specific prospects and sending semi-personalized newsletters containing brand updates to engage with “cold” candidates.
Through proactive engagement with potential candidates and keeping them abreast of job opportunities and company happenings, you can cultivate a talent pipeline primed for utilization when the need arises.
Use of Data Analytics will Be on the Rise
It’s expected that in 2024 hiring managers will start to use data analytics in an efficient manner that will improve productivity, the revenue of your business.
The benefits of using data analytics are unlimited like access to a large database of employee information, understanding employee behavioural patterns, satisfaction performance and improvement in productivity.
HR managers would be able to track metrics training expenses per employee, human capital risk, revenue per employee, acceptance rate.
Now, the data from these key metrics will improve the hiring process and employee experience. This will make the workplace more productive. HR would be able to also identify future risks in the organisation so that solutions can be applied without any delay.
Creating a Work Culture that will Improve the HR roles
Employees prefer organisations that nurture their talent and give them ample opportunities to excel and add skills to their profile plus a healthy work culture. According to a study conducted by Randstad, 45% of employees were looking for a healthy work culture and 30% said that they would leave their jobs because of poor work-life balance.
Around 40% said they would leave their jobs because of no growth in their career path. So, it’s important to maintain a healthy work culture to retain your best employees.
HR managers will have to work harder to communicate the company’s values to the employees. This includes closing any gender gap, promoting women to executive positions and equal support for employees looking to pursue education or any skills development.
Inbound Recruitment can be Helpful
Inbound recruitment allows you to attract potential candidates so that they choose you as their employer. The main goal of inbound recruitment is to engage, convert and attract candidates.
This can be a long-term solution to advance the hiring strategies. By implementing inbound recruiting as your strategy, you can easily build an employer brand that would enhance the pool of high-quality candidates. Many big corporates have implemented inbound recruiting as their recruitment strategy.
It would take some time to get the desired results but in the long run, the quality, and the cost will improve significantly. If you want to hire quickly then it’s possible by taking the help of recruitment companies.
Recruiting via Social Media
Using social media for talent acquisition can be a killer strategy. You need to make good use of social media channels to recruit. In social media, it involves platforms such as Linkedin, Facebook, Twitter, etc. There are also other ways for recruitment like job portals, job boards, forums and Glassdoor to find the best candidates and recruit them. By social media recruiting you can reach the following things:
- Social recruitment will get you plenty of referrals
- Target only candidates who are the best fit
- Save plenty of money
- Showcase your company culture with social media
- Employee referrals for talent acquisition
Employee referrals are a top-notch way to search for quality candidates that will be based on the recommendations of the employees of your current organisation. By starting a good employee referral program, companies would get better ROI and quality of the potential hires. Referred employees stay longer with the companies.
Collaborative Hiring
It is a simple yet effective strategy in which both HR teams and teams from the other departments work side by side to hire professionals.
Collaborative hiring is important as it notably improves the quality of the new hires. So, turnover rates will be dropped which will positively affect the overall talent acquisition strategy.
Work on the Retention of Employees
Talent acquisition is about keeping your current employees happy and keeping them motivated. You must invest in their growth, try to look beyond their current roles and provide them with lots of opportunities. There are plenty of programs that you can offer to keep your team and employees on the right note. The role is to understand the value of a good employee and keep them inspired.
Utilize Your Company’s LinkedIn Profile
You can’t dare to miss out on a community like Linkedin.
You can take advantage of your connections and get engagement on your job posts that would be relevant.
Leverage LinkedIn’s premium tools that would give you access to advanced search filters.
Narrow down your target based on demographics, keywords, seniority, and many other filters.
Use a Better Approach in Writing Job Descriptions
Skilled candidates want challenging work they feel good about and the best way to recruit talent is to promote your company’s goal. Every job ad begins with job-specific skills instead of explaining how your ideal candidate is going to make an impact on your company. When you write a job ad, begin with your company’s purpose in the ad title. In the job description, explain how this position will help the company to fulfil its mission.
If you want to write something more creative and advanced level for a job description, then you can choose an AI-based free writing tool like Quillbot. It helps you to paraphrase the text of your existing content in the most inventive and expressive way naturally.
Just ensure your job descriptions are:
- Condensed yet detailed descriptions of core duties and requirements
- Inclusive language and tone, free of gender bias
- Reflective of company culture, values, and brand mission
- Incorporate relevant keywords for improved visibility on job platforms and search engines
Involve Your Best Employees in the Recruitment Strategy
Searching for the top candidates is about listening first, you must interview your best employees and identify what they love most, how they talk about their work. Now, use these trends in a recruitment marketing strategy. Tell the stories about your best people as these stories would be attractive to people having similar interests. Place the ads on the channels people like them use.
Observe the Online Reviews
Staying up to date with candidate and employee comments on the forums will provide you with a wealth of information about the validity of your recruitment marketing. The biggest challenge you will face is how to respond. It might not be possible for talent acquisition to craft a response to the online scenario. You must find a partner in your organisation who can support the team in brand building.
Look for Potential Candidates
Your company might not have openings for certain roles. You should keep in mind the long-term plan of your business. If you find a good candidate, then consider whether this is a good investment or not to bring the person in your company before a competitor hires him. Investing in the candidate right now can pay off 10x returns for your company.
Use of Artificial Intelligence in Recruitment in 2024
In 2024, AI is expected to revolutionize the recruitment process with its advanced capabilities. Key applications of AI in recruitment include automated resume screening, where AI algorithms swiftly analyze, and screen resumes for relevant skills and qualifications.
Intelligent chatbots offer personalized assistance to candidates throughout the hiring process, scheduling interviews and providing seamless experiences. AI algorithms analyze video interviews, providing recruiters with insights into candidate suitability based on body language and speech patterns.
AI-based platforms administer skills assessments and tests, offering objective evaluations to identify candidates with the right skill sets. Predictive analytics leverage historical hiring data to make data-driven decisions and enhance hiring outcomes.
AI also promotes diversity and inclusion by anonymizing candidate information and ensuring fair evaluations. Furthermore, AI tools proactively engage with passive candidates, facilitating talent pipelining for future positions and expanding access to a wider pool of qualified candidates.
Become Visible to Passive Candidates
There is an alarming sign for recruiters in the market that top talent is gone in 10 days from the job market. It means the recruiters need to act quickly to poach the top talent. But the best news is that there is no shortage of passive candidates in the market.
According to research, 70% of the world’s talent is in the passive market, just waiting for that perfect offer.
Targeting passive candidates is not the same as the other candidates. As they are not searching for jobs on job boards. You need to develop a long-term talent acquisition strategy to target passive candidates.
Talent acquisition focuses on the long-term visibility and appeal of your organization. By taking care of all these factors, your objective is to get seen by passive candidates way before they’re looking for a new role.
Conclusion
A low unemployment rate is good for the economy, but it will be hard for recruitment companies because of the challenges it has. You can improve your talent acquisition game by following the above strategies.
By adopting a strategic and forward-thinking approach, organizations can enhance their talent acquisition efforts and attract top talent.
Key elements of an effective talent acquisition strategy in 2024 include leveraging technology and data analytics, embracing AI in recruitment processes, prioritizing candidate experience and engagement, nurturing relationships with educational institutions, and continuously developing recruitment teams.
These strategies empower organizations to identify, engage, and hire the best candidates who align with their goals and contribute to their success. With a comprehensive talent acquisition strategy in place, organizations can build a competitive advantage, secure the right talent, and thrive in a dynamic and evolving business landscape.
By staying abreast of emerging trends and tailoring their strategies to the unique needs of 2024, organizations can position themselves as employers of choice and successfully hire the best candidates.