6 Ways to Supercharge Your Early Career Recruiting This Fall
The talent acquisition community has come a long way in just the past few years. In fall 2020, recruiters' main focus was how they could continue to connect with candidates as campuses remained closed, and travel restricted. One year later, talent teams found themselves trying to strike the right balance between in-person and virtual recruiting, and to meet the needs of a new generation of workers whose values have been reshaped by a global health crisis.
This season, it's time for recruiters to return to their roots and refocus on the fundamental recruiting strategies that got them to where they are today. But that's not all.
While these basic tenets of recruiting are important for building a strong pipeline of early career talent this season, lessons learned from the Coronavirus and preparing for an uncertain economic future have changed what successful recruitment will look like this fall. To remain competitive, recruiters will have to take steps to build on those strategies to meet the needs of today's candidates.
Download our Fall 2022-23 Recruitment Checklist for all of our data-backed recommendations to compete for top talent this fall, and see the highlights below!
1. Form strong partnerships with key business stakeholders
Getting buy-in from your leadership team remains a crucial part of any successful recruitment strategy. However, talent teams are getting leaner while demands from candidates — such as salary expectations — are continuing to increase. To account for that gap, early career recruiters are going to have to make more friends in the business.
That’s why it’s important now more than ever to focus on internal social networking by forming relationships with some additional decision-makers within your organization, such as team leads. By introducing yourself to those key players, you’ll gain insight into their goals and challenges, which should inform your strategies for attracting early career talent. Plus, armed with the pain points you’ve picked up on, you can also better make your case to leadership for how your early career efforts can support the company as a whole. For example, you can demonstrate how you can help teams bridge the mid-level talent gaps they are experiencing by seeking junior talent, which can also reduce recruitment and hiring costs.
2. Find meaningful ways to make real progress toward a more inclusive workforce
As more Gen Zers enter the workforce, D&I becomes more important than ever. That’s because the newest entrants to the workforce are the most diverse generation to date, and are putting a strong emphasis on companies that walk the walk of diversifying the workforce. In a recent survey of more than 2,000 juniors and seniors, we found that more than 75% of Gen Zers will reconsider applying for a role if they are not satisfied with a company’s efforts to diversify the workforce.
After evaluating your hiring process to determine where you might be failing to support diverse candidates, it’s time to make meaningful progress toward opening your doors to candidates from different backgrounds. Are you failing to attract diverse talent to apply to your open roles? You may want to take another look at your initial job qualifications. Another step you can take to appeal to Gen Z is to ensure that candidates engage with a diverse set of employees during the hiring process. In fact, our more recent survey shows that the top way a candidate evaluates a company’s dedication to D&I is by interacting with company representatives with different backgrounds.
3. Solidify a strong nurture plan to prevent reneges and retain talent
This season, your strategy to keep talent engaged and provide a stellar candidate experience must extend beyond when candidates sign their offer letters. That’s because we found that Gen Z has a liberal attitude toward reneges — with 73% of entry-level job seekers in the labor market admitting that they would rescind an offer if a ‘better’ one came along.
It’s also important to understand the reasons why candidates renege. In our survey, we found that the top reason candidates would back out of an offer is if an alternate opportunity better aligned with their long-term career goals. It’s therefore crucial that you discuss career alignment and growth opportunities with candidates during the interview process. Following a more competitive salary, other top reasons candidates would rescind included superior work-life balance and flexibility —- which you should be sure to highlight in your discussion around company culture.
4. Be strategic about what events you host and how you market them
Despite the fact that the recruiters we surveyed ahead of the fall recruiting season shared that they will be hosting and attending a slew of events come September, they also admitted that their biggest challenge today includes hosting engaging events for candidates, and their greatest unknown about Gen Z is what kind of recruitment events they want to attend. That gap can lead to low turnout or unengaged audiences.
It’s important to plan your events using data around what works — especially for recruiters on leaner teams and with tighter budgets. This year, RippleMatch analyzed hundreds of events hosted on our platform to determine what makes for a successful recruitment event to help you plan ahead. We found that the most successful formats included networking or meet and greets with employees, company info sessions, and job readiness opportunities, such as resume workshops. When it comes to marketing those events, we found that the earlier students were made aware of the event, the better. In fact, events created and marketed at least 30 days prior to the event were the most likely to see 20 or more attendees.
5. Break through the noise to compete with similar companies
Candidates today have hundreds of opportunities at their disposal, and that includes roles at household brands. In fact, in our survey of talent professionals, we found that a majority of them are worried about competing with similar companies this fall.
Not that it’s easier to recruit candidates who have engaged with you for months or years than those who just heard about you a week ago — especially for leaner teams. One way you can do so is by making the most of your resources by opening up your existing events to younger students. If you’re hosting an information session on your industry or role type, invite freshmen and sophomores to attend as well. Then create a separate post-event follow-up to engage those students.
You should also ensure that you have at least one document or webpage on hand that highlights early careers at your company, your culture, and the benefits of working there. Include a section on how students can stay in the loop if it’s too early to apply.
6. Use Sort to automate applicant review and reduce time to hire
Recruiters today are being tasked with projects that require greater time investments — such as recruiting a diverse slate of candidates — yet talent teams aren’t growing. And those big plans tend to get sidetracked with so much manual labor, such as sifting through resumes. Plus, delays in applicant review can lead to a negative candidate experience.
With RippleMatch Sort, you can automate your candidate review and notify candidates right away about whether they will be moving forward. That’s because Sort filters out unqualified candidates so you only spend time looking at candidates who meet your minimum qualifications. Using Sort, you’ll find yourself spending 70% less time reviewing applicants than you would manually, and significantly reduce your time to hire. And by automating your resume review, you’ll also be able to spend more time on forming deep connections with those who will be moving in your hiring process.
As you find yourself returning to your roots this fall, and employing the strategies that have gotten you to where you are today, take the extra leap to stand out among the competition and let this checklist guide you through this season and beyond. For more data and strategies, you can download our full guide here.
