Top 7 Recruitment Channels Every Hiring Agency or Team is Using To Source Candidates

Here is the list of the 7 best recruitment channels that recruitment agencies and employers can use to source candidates for their open job positions.

1. Online job portals

Close to 51 million job seekers search for employment and get recruited annually. Almost 61% of those start their job search on online job portals. Therefore employers should never ignore the importance of them as recruitment channels. Major online job portals, such as Glassdoor, Monster, and Indeed allow the company to reach out to a wider audience, which increases your chances of finding the right candidate for the job.

Do not depend on a single job portal when you have different options. And utilise all the available online resources to post your job adverts. Apart from the niche online job websites, you can focus your job posts on industry-specific job portals, which focus on a particular skill or particular industry. This way you will reach your target audience and can target your job ads to a focused group, resulting in high quality leads for your open positions.

Also,

• Focus on making your job postings eye-catching and appealing to the job seekers.
• Give your post an attractive title and make sure it is unique and different from the rest.
• Keep your audience in mind while writing, entice their emotions. Keep your content short; one paragraph is enough as it will compel the applicants to read further.
• Optimize your job postings with keywords. In order for it to reach the job seekers, the digital medium will scan your job postings and rank them according to their relevance. Therefore, include such keywords in your content that it gets picked by the algorithms and reaches its intended target audience.
• Sell the job position to the jobseekers. The essence lies in selling the job to the candidates rather than simply rattling about the job roles and responsibilities. You may have a laundry list of responsibilities ready to put out with the job postings but stay away from that. Do not let your ad become one of those 100 unimpressive ads that are flooding the online job portals today. Limit the roles and duties to 2 or 3 lines. Instead, speak of the benefits and perks of the job. Let the candidates become aware of the perks they will enjoy, such as flexible working hours, free or subsidised gym membership, Saturday work offs, healthcare, and social weekends if they get this job.

2. Company website

If your company does not yet have a website, create one asap. Your business website is the first and foremost step in employer branding. It is a passive yet one of the most effective methods of recruitment. In this digital age, the most important identity of any business is their business or corporate website. That is why it is rightly known as a brand’s web address.

When a candidate reads your job postings in an online job portal, the first thing they will do is look up your company online and try to find the website. If you are a startup and not many know about your business, the website will give you identity and credibility. It will boost the trustworthiness of your business.

• Apart from giving you identity, you can use your website as a great marketing tool to market your organization to your prospective employees and potential clients.
• Create a separate page for careers and add it into your website. Guide the organic visits to your careers’ page and allow them to soak in the information and know more about your company. The more information they read about your company, the more credible and trustworthy it will make them feel. This will result in better candidate inquiries.
• Plus, optimise your website regularly and keep feeding it regularly with updated content. This will improve your website visibility and your rankings, which will attract more organic traffic to your website.

3. Employee referrals

These are among the most effective recruitment channels. After all, your employees can become your greatest marketers, provided you use them efficiently. Your employees will refer only to those candidates whom they know professionally and/or personally. They will only want to recommend someone they think is the best fit for the job as well as the company culture. Therefore, you can trust your employee referrals.

Also, the referred candidate is already aware of your company and yet has applied for the job. This means that they have heard positive reviews about your company from your current employees and are seeking long term career opportunities in your company.

Employee referrals bring more efficiency into the hiring process and greatly reduce the recruitment and marketing expenses of the company. And if you create an effective employee referral program, you can actively indulge your existing employees into referring candidates for the open job positions.

Here is how you can encourage your employees to actively participate in employee referral activity:

• Create an attractive employee referral program. Keep some funds out of your annual recruitment budget to reward your employees on every successful referral.
• Reward the employees who have provided the most referrals. Reward them even if the hiring didn’t happen. This will encourage your employees to continue referring.
• Convert the referral activity into a contest or competition to help raise enthusiasm and awareness among the employees about the referral program.
• Implement the referral program from the very start and include your new recruits into the referral scheme.

4. Social media

This is the new buzzword in recruitment; social media platforms have emerged to become the most effective recruitment channels, allowing companies to reach out to a wider candidate base in a very short period.

Employers use different social media such as LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter and Instagram to advertise their open job positions and reach out to the top candidates through different engagement activities. Therefore, plan a social media hiring strategy and implement it quite early on social media platforms. Here is what you can do:

• Encourage your workforce to share posts about your open job positions on their personal social media handles.
• Focus on employer branding; it continues to be one of the most efficient hiring sources. Millennials are no longer looking for stability, instead, they seek value in the kind of work they do.
• Use social media tools to highlight the USP(s) of your company. Get your employees to generate content for the company as this will draw on their experience and will be more genuine. Create shorter marketing videos about life at the company and circulate it on social media.

5. Internal recruitment

This is the process of filling the open job vacancies of a company from within the existing employees. It is an effective method of filling up open job positions. You do not just find a known person for the role, but you also provide opportunities for career growth to your existing employees. This acts as a brownie point when it comes to employee retention and appreciation.

Many companies today employ internal recruitment strategies to fill up roles that require the knowledge and skills of an insider. This instils a sense of growth and progress in the workforce. Therefore, here is what you can do:

• Set up an internal job board where you would list your job vacancies and encourage your employees to apply for those positions.
• Set up an applicant tracking system. You may not realise but the moment you open job vacancies for internal recruitment, you will get bombarded with applications. Hence, setting up an applicant tracking system to track each application and differentiate between internal and external candidates will help.

6. Candidate rediscovery

It is the process of mining your existing candidate pool or resumé database to find the most suitable candidates for your open job positions.

It is a human tendency to reinvent the wheel when it comes to searching for something or someone. But, sometimes, it is wiser to start your search from what you already have.

You have created your database of candidates, through different recruitment activities conducted in the past. So why not search through that data bank first before employing external and expensive recruitment strategies.

Use your applicant tracking system to scan through your existing resumé database. Apply smart sourcing functions to dig out the most preferable resumés and contact those candidates with the offer.

7. Job fair

This is a wonderful recruitment channel and continues to be popular among candidates seeking a new job. A job fair is like speed dating for recruitment. Here, the employer gets the chance to meet different kinds of job seekers. They have the option to select the best candidate(s) and give them a spot offer.

Job fairs are a great source for mass recruitment drives or when you want to fill entry-level job positions.

To make the most of a job fair, do the following:

• Determine your recruitment goal. Have a clear goal before going into the job fair. This will help you stay focused among the crowd and only seek out the candidates that are suitable for your industry.
• Create an efficient team of recruiters and managers who can network with candidates and find the best ones from the lot.
• Plan your questions. The job fair is a mele, and not an ideal place for constructive thinking, so, prepare your questions before entering the job fair.
• Keep spot job offers handy for the top candidates. If you come across that perfect fit candidate, attract them into your company with a value-based spot job offer.

These are the best recruitment channels that employers and recruiters can use to source candidates. Plan and creatine effective strategy to make the most out of these recruitment channels. The idea should be to spread a positive employer identity and create brand awareness so that candidates get attracted to the company.