How to Improve Your Employability in 2022 and Beyond

If you’re a recent graduate entering the job market for the first time or even a professional with decades of experience looking for a career change, finding the right position can be a difficult task for any job-seeker. The process becomes even more challenging when you want to ensure that you will actually get hired for the position you were dreaming of. While some aspects of this procedure are entirely out of your control and in the hands of the employer, there are still some ways you can increase your chances of landing the right job. With that in mind, here are some simple methods for improving your employability this year:

Gain New Skills

When attempting to enhance your employability, gaining new skills and capabilities is one of the most important things you could do. Whether that means getting an MBA degree, deepening your technological knowledge, or simply improving your communication skills, each new ability will make you a better job candidate. It will also demonstrate to employers that you are a focused and ambitious individual willing to learn and grow, all sought-after qualities. Not to mention that personal satisfaction and career progression will also improve with personal development, as long as you invest enough time and effort.

Improve Your CV

Whether you’ve just begun hunting for jobs or you need an update due to your new skills, your curriculum vitae (CV) should periodically be reviewed and improved. If at all possible, aim to adjust your CV for each role you apply to, in an effort to increase your chances of success. After all, the CV is meant to present you in the best possible light and allow employers to get the right first impression, so make it count. Don’t overfill it with useless information. Instead, highlight the most relevant skills and experience for each position, and include any competencies or personality traits that make you a more attractive candidate.

Practice Interviews

It’s difficult to predict the exact questions you will be asked during a job interview. However, you can always familiarise yourself with the most common interview questions, and prepare yourself to answer them efficiently. Keep in mind that no employer wants to hear the same answers being repeated over and over again. Instead, try to be yourself, remain open and honest, and make your answers as unique as possible. That is how you stand out from the crowd.

Invest in Equipment

Although often overlooked, even smaller aspects could potentially affect your employability. For instance, you can purchase high-quality workwear in the UK and stay prepared for any job that may come your way. From cargo trousers and overalls to jackets and hi-vis clothing, being equipped with suitable workwear will convey professionalism, seriousness, and devotion to the job. This could be especially helpful if you’re a contractor or part-time worker, ensuring you are always ready for work no matter when you receive the next call.

Find New Hobbies

Job applications and CVs often have a ‘hobbies and interests’ section as well. While this might seem a bit pointless at first, it can actually be a great opportunity for improving your employability. Companies tend to look for well-rounded candidates, and a couple of interesting hobbies could help to demonstrate your suitability for a position. If you’re a performer in your spare time, for instance, you will show creativity and confidence, while those who enjoy reading and completing puzzles could demonstrate an inquisitive and analytical nature. Although these pastimes don’t have to be directly related to the role, make sure they do fit the company culture.

Follow the Industry

In case you’re actively looking for new positions, staying updated on the latest news and happenings in your sector can also be of great help. Visit industry websites regularly, read relevant magazines, and follow the events on social media to stay on top of topical issues and the ways in which they impact your field. Not only will this demonstrate interest and devotion to prospective employers, but it will also shape your development and keep your skill set fresh, thus making you more employable.

Prioritise Networking

There’s no better way to find new opportunities in your field than to build a good network. Attend conferences and networking events, connect with industry professionals on LinkedIn, or simply ask your current connections to introduce you to new and relevant people. Knowing the right people can open new doors for you, present unique opportunities, allow you to learn more about your industry, and enable you to engage further in your field. Good connections will also show potential employers that you have something valuable to offer.

Regardless of your industry or professional skill set, job-seeking can be a daunting prospect for anyone. To enhance your employability and increase your chances of landing the right role, follow the tips mentioned above and ensure your success.

Recruiting Process for Truck Drivers

In a world where everything is always on the move, the demand for professional truck drivers only continues to increase. And this isn’t just the case with the transportation industry either; nearly every sector has a need for transporting goods and products of all kinds. If your company requires a truck driver as well, you may be wondering about the hiring process needed for this type of position. To help you make the best possible decision, here is everything you need to know about hiring truck drivers, from critical skills to onboarding techniques:

Creating a skills profile

Just like any other recruiting process, hiring truck drivers should also begin with a list of necessary skills and qualifications. The most important thing each applicant should have is a heavy vehicle license that enables them to operate trucks, along with any other certifications that are legally required in your area. Previous experience with similar companies is also preferred, as well as great mechanical knowledge and safety skills to ensure smooth operations. You might also want to look for particularly detailed and adaptable candidates, to ensure they can handle the often changing conditions that can be expected in this job.

Writing a job description

Once you know the type of employee you are looking for, the next step would be to write a detailed job description to attract candidates. The description should include the necessary technical and soft skills, preferred experience, a list of key responsibilities, employee benefits, a description of the company and culture, reasons for this role being filled, and other important information. It’s recommended to advertise the job posting on as many different platforms as possible, such as your website, social media, job search sites, and even industry magazines, in an effort to expand your outreach and appeal to top talent.

Thinking of interview questions

After the right job description attracts suitable applicants, the candidate will have to go through an interview process. Here, you will have to ask specific and intentional questions that will allow you to make the right selection. This can mean talking about the candidate’s qualifications, driving experience, and history, as well as the tactics they use for handling long shifts and drives. It might also be wise to ask about the routine checks they perform before driving a vehicle, and the safety precautions they take each day. Similarly, you can ask about planning procedures, delivery accuracy, logging habits, and anything else that might pertain to the position.

Conducting a practical test

In countries like Australia, truck drivers often have to pass a practical test during the application process as well. Here, companies tend to find truck hire in Brisbane for their needs. Not only is hiring a truck a safe and reliable solution, but it also helps to remove some of the liabilities and resulting costs for companies in case anything goes wrong during testing. You should also consider doing the same. These practical tests will enable you to examine candidates’ knowledge and skills in a more direct manner, helping to narrow down the applicant list even further.

Performing a screening

Across the US, on the other hand, screenings are a common practice when recruiting. This process often includes checking the commercial driver’s license, medical certificate, employment history, and similar aspects for performing a thorough background check and verifying each applicant’s records. The main purpose of this screening process is to confirm and establish who each candidate is, as well as to obtain their driving histories for the past few years. Pre-employment alcohol and drug testing is frequently performed as well. If at all possible, you should consider conducting the same checks for your truck drivers to ensure safety.

Choosing the right fit

Hard technical skills aren’t the only important factor. You will also have to select a candidate with the right soft skills to ensure they are a good fit for your company. Of course, this will mostly depend on your industry, your business, as well as the specific requirements of the role the candidate is supposed to fill. However, some of the most common skills companies look for include packing and loading capabilities, adaptability to road and weather conditions, attention to detail when on the road, good communication and collaboration skills, working well with a team, etc.

Orientation and training

Once the most suitable candidate has been selected and hired, it would be best for them to go through employee orientation. This process should include an introduction to your business, and necessary education regarding your company policies and procedures. The program can last anywhere from a few days to a few weeks, depending on your operations, but it’s crucial for ensuring the new hire can easily assimilate into your work environment and perform their job optimally. If necessary, you can also consider additional training at this point, in case you’d like the new employee to become a better driver or gain new skills and capabilities that are needed for their role.

Bottom line

Regardless of the position, the transportation industry always has high standards to ensure the safety and security of their employees. To adhere to these requirements, follow the advice above and create a streamlined recruiting process.

How to Recruit and Train Top Machining and Manufacturing Talent

One of the main challenges in manufacturing is talent acquisition since there is a significant skills gap in this industry. It seems that this problem will become even more challenging in the coming years and we can notice that it is not the only thing problematic in this domain of the manufacturing industry. It is noticeable hard to retain talent so this industry seeks a solution when it comes to long-lasting and skilled talent.

Who is hiring?

Considering the fact that the machining and manufacturing industry is experiencing a skilled labour shortage, it would be fair to say that everyone is hiring in this field. Being short on knowledgeable talent, businesses in this industry are actively looking for reliable employees. If you’re looking for a job in a milling machine shop, you will be introduced to a long list of job listings for positions such as Milling CNC Machinist or Machine Operator. On the other hand, if you’re an employer in this industry it’s a quite harder situation and you should start thinking in a different direction. Employers should consider providing efficient training for new employees and at the same time working on the employee engagement of existing employees.

Capitalizing on new talent

A great solution for manufacturing businesses is to look at the pool of newly unemployed workers, which is unfortunately pretty deep these days. The thing is that entry-level positions are pretty difficult to hire, and the idea of recruiting this talent for these jobs could grow into a win-win situation. It is important to assure these candidates that you will keep your patience and will invest in training them in this new field.

Investing in onboarding

Every employer (especially in this industry that highly values new talent) should consider the recruiting process to be a serious investment. Investing in work programs such as mentorships can give great results. This way you will provide your new employees with effective training and guide workers through on-the-job education. Before implementing this idea into your onboarding process you should consider providing your mentors and leaders with training in managing employees from other industries.

Managing Talent Pipeline

To attract top talent you should make sure that your company is the best place to work. This means that you should work on employee satisfaction. For the most effective talent acquisition, building an early pipeline is really important. Besides pinpointing the highest quality candidates, offering paid apprenticeship programs is a great idea, since this could lead to later hiring.

Today more than ever, the art of building things is trying to reintroduce itself to talent. Since the evolution of the manufacturing industry is intense, it is important that your recruiting strategy reflect that.

Healthcare Recruitment Strategies: How to Attract Candidates

While labor shortages have been hitting many industries over the last few years, healthcare has been experiencing noticeable issues even before the COVID-19 pandemic. Around 20% of healthcare workers decided to leave their workplaces in 2020, with the infamous nursing shortage beginning long before. Clearly, labor shortages are affecting healthcare in quite significant ways, but there are still some tactics providers can use to attract and retain quality talent. To that end, here are some efficient healthcare recruitment strategies that might help you attract great candidates as well:

Focusing more on social media

Social media has become an unavoidable aspect of our lives, but it turns out it’s just as crucial for recruitment as well. A significant percentage of the workforce considers social media to be an efficient place for finding new and rewarding career paths, a fact that can be especially beneficial if you’re looking for younger candidates. LinkedIn still remains the best platform for finding great industry professionals, but even websites such as Facebook and Instagram can be helpful, by sharing positive patient reviews, highlighting employee achievements, and conveying compassion through community involvement. Using LinkedIn automation tools can help you by reaching out to right candidates in the healthcare industry and will help you engage with them without wasting your time on the platform.

Making job postings accessible

If a candidate finds your medical practice to be appealing and is eager to apply to an open position, consider how easy it would be for them to actually find your job postings. To increase visibility, consider including a ‘Careers’ section on your website that lists all current openings and serves as a space for online recruiting. You can also post these same listings to social media platforms for higher outreach. Then, aim to optimize the ‘Careers’ page for a more candidate-friendly recruitment process that makes it simple to search through job openings and reduces the steps needed to complete the application process.

Communicating the company culture

While clearly communicating the company culture might be important for any recruitment strategy, it’s particularly crucial in healthcare. This will help to demonstrate the type of workplace you provide, the typical pace of work that can be expected, and the usual relationships between coworkers, among other factors. With this picture, candidates will have a better idea of whether they are actually a good fit for your team, encouraging them only to apply for a position if they know it’s the right option for them. In turn, you won’t have to weed out inexperienced applicants or explain to a care facility nurse why patient recovery might not be suitable for them.

Showcasing your unique work

In countries like Australia, the best cosmetic surgeon in Melbourne will often let their work speak for them. Along with building a strong social media presence, this also means showcasing the work they’ve previously done on patients on their website, as well as describing the general work environment through images and videos. This has shown to be quite an effective and inexpensive way to attract candidates without having to contact them directly; they are often engaged and interested enough that they reach out to you. As long as you follow patient privacy laws, you can consider implementing a similar work-first strategy as well.

Seeking advice from your staff

In cities across Europe, on the other hand, it’s common for the entire staff to join the healthcare facility’s recruitment efforts. Employees are often offered incentives that motivate them to share job postings on their social media channels as well, thus reaching out directly to potentially interested connections. The current staff can also help by being more careful about how they represent your practice online. If you’d like to ask your staff to aid in recruiting, consider implementing a detailed social media policy for your employees. For example, they shouldn’t share privileged information, belittle patients or colleagues, talk about controversial topics, etc. This will help to ensure more streamlined operations.

Accessing untapped channels

When it comes to recruitment, it often pays to be creative. Accessing untapped channels can provide you with highly skilled and experienced candidates you might not have been able to find otherwise. For doctors, nurses, surgeons, and other highly specialized roles, this could mean leveraging employee referral programs, revisiting previous runner-up candidates, hosting professional seminars, and looking outside typical sources, like contacting international or recently retired professionals. In terms of unspecialized healthcare roles, keep in mind that you’re competing with all other high-volume employers. Tactics you could utilize here also include referrals, along with more unique methods such as hosting public job fairs and partnering with volunteer groups in an effort to make a big impact and convert top talent.

As the demand for qualified professionals of all skill levels continues to increase, healthcare recruitment will likely get even more challenging and competitive. Use the recruitment strategies mentioned above to streamline your processes and ensure you can always deliver the highest quality of care to your patients.

How to Optimize Your Website for a Better Candidate Experience

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On one hand, it makes perfect sense that brands are doing everything they can to target customers and attract buyers with their digital outlets.

As a business, you need to make the most of your website when it comes to customer acquisition and retention, so you naturally post customer-focused content, reviews, and create pages that appeal to your target audience.

What about the potential employees? Where can they find useful information about a potential position with your business? 

A Careers page shouldn’t be the one and only candidate-centric page on your entire website. You need to optimize your site in such a way that it serves a double purpose: attracting customers, but also appealing to potential employees. To do that, you should focus on improving the overall candidate experience linked to your website! 

As much as you invest in creating dedicated social media pages for your potential employees and posting on recruiting sites to push your brand’s job ads to the forefront, your site should be employee-centric, too. Here are a few candidate experience ideas you can introduce into your strategy to make every step of the candidate journey, from a job through to an offer letter, easier for you and the applicants from day one! 

Live chat support for applicants

Your site likely offers chat support for customers and users, right? Whether you have chatbots or actual people handling these conversations, more often than not, such interactions will determine whether or not a person will buy from you. 

The same applies to your potential employees. Chatbots can enhance the candidate experience immensely because they’ll feel much more comfortable knowing they can turn to chat for help if they come across an issue during the application process. This is also another opportunity for your business to collect invaluable data from employees and to make smarter recruiting decisions in the future. 

A personalized website 

Whether you work as a recruiter or you’re an entrepreneur building a personal brand and in need of employees – personalization can truly save the day. Your website doesn’t have to be yet another generic .com domain that will hardly inspire action or tell a story about your business. For people who have a personal brand and depend on it to attract valid customers, you can do the same to attract valid employees.

For starters, you can choose a personal domain name that pairs with a .me extension for added value and relevance for your potential employees. You can pair a keyword from your expertise with your own first/last name or nickname to immediately show what your business is about. As soon as a potential candidate spots your domain name, they’ll know what your brand has to offer.

Personalization helps build trust as well as brand recognition, which in turn helps you with the entire recruiting process. Make sure your website is technically sound, loads quickly, and offers a great user experience as well as having an attractive design.

Employee-generated content

Every single business in existence uses customer or user-generated content as well as influencer marketing to make an impactful statement about the business itself. Have you been doing the same for your applicants and wannabe-candidates? Future employees want to see what it’s like to work with your organization. Your own job ads won’t suffice. 

• Encourage employees to write blogs for your website and promote that content on social media, too. 
• Entice employees to write their own reviews and experiences on your website. 
• Publish “behind the scenes” videos at the office to show your candidate pool what it means to work with your brand. 

When your candidates get to see your employees’ perspectives and experiences, they’ll be much more likely to apply, evaluate if you’re a good match, and reach out if they have any questions. Not to mention the SEO value of such content for your website when someone is searching for the specific position that you’re offering!

Integrate social media with your site

Be where your candidates are. Just like your customers, your future employees are spending time on Facebook and Instagram. As much as you’d like to limit yourself to LinkedIn, you should understand that many successful and in-demand workers don’t really spend that much time on this professional network. 

They prefer the casual and relaxed environment on Facebook, so that’s where you need to be, too. In fact, this is one of the best recruitment tactics modern businesses should use, but that doesn’t mean that it exists separately from the rest of your recruiting methods, like your site.

• Add clickable buttons to take your website visitors to your social media pages that are employee-focused. 
• Make sure that you share blogs, articles, employer branding videos, and other content on social media that is relevant for your candidates, not just customers. 
• Show screenshots of your finest social media moments (employee-centric ones) on your website, too. 
• Add original hashtags that will be part of your recruiting campaigns, and link them throughout your website back to your social media pages.
• Invest in Social Media Advertising on Instagram and Facebook.

Just like you actively try to simplify your customers’ lives and minimize their efforts, you should strive to do the same for potential employees. If they have managed to come across your website, it’s up to you to improve the site in its entirety to match their needs, exceed their expectations, and deliver the right content that matches their purpose. 

Wrapping up

It takes time to refine your website, and you’ll always need to revisit your content, add more relevant information, and get creative, but you already do the same for customers. Continuous growth is what your website should be all about.

Make sure that your site reflects your candidate’s values and that you can use your site to portray your brand in the best possible light whenever you’re about to search for that ideal person to join your team!

Talent Acquisition: How Recruiters Can Implement AI In Their Hiring Strategies

Modern technologies do not stand still and are constantly evolving and artificial intelligence (AI) is no exception. This technology has come a long way since it first came into being. Now it’s used for self-driving cars, facial recognition, and even has applications in recruiting. AI is the ability of a machine to adapt to changing circumstances and act in an “intelligent” manner.

Recruiting difficulties

Recruiters say that it has become very challenging to search for candidates. There are simply too many applicants and it’s impossible to get through them all. Reviewing applications, tests, resumes, and conducting interviews all take time. And that’s not all! Candidates still need to call, schedule an interview, and then summarize all interviews — all this is too time-consuming and requires some automation.

In 2014, Amazon commissioned its developers to create an automated system for selecting candidates based on artificial intelligence. A year later, a problem emerged: fewer women were recruited than men. Since the algorithm was trained on the resume of the company’s employees over the past ten years; there were more men, so the system gave more preference to them. By early 2017, the company had phased out this system. These kinds of problems can be avoided by checking for implicit biases and investing in system vetting. However, you should also keep in mind how to control and save your money so the entire budget of the company isn’t wasted.

Application in practice

Nowadays PEO services integrate AI into their hiring strategies. Global PEO services outreach to Germany, Singapore, Canada, and many other countries. You can also find good examples of an Australia PEO. They all use artificial intelligence to validate entry-level employees. The company announced considerable success in recruiting its employees using AI. Job seekers can be interviewed in a unique application on their smartphones. The program takes video and audio data from interviews, analyzes them, and gives recommendations for further actions for recruiting agencies.

Artificial Intelligence solutions and analyses 

The artificial intelligence used to recruit employees does all of this in minutes. It can also analyze, select, and call candidates. What’s the point of using a robot to make calls? It can examine the facial expressions and voice of the applicant in more than a hundred different parameters, like mood, honesty, character. For example, a bot-recruiter asks a job seeker questions about their attitude to alcohol, gambling, or something else that affects a person’s personal qualities and spills over into business ones. When a person starts to get nervous, his voice may change noticeably or even gradually – this is what the system is designed for. At the same time, short answers like “yes” or “no” are not accepted — the recommended length of the answer is 7–10 words. The analysis takes only a few seconds. The robots can even check for interesting personal finance statistics for this year. 

After all the analysis, the AI gives a grade, determining whether a potential candidate will be called for a job. A person will already be looking at the grades and calling for work. The assessment is also influenced by the analysis of pages in social networks. This is also done by the system, not by the person. However, in this way, it will be possible to find specialists of the lower and middle level — cashiers, salespeople, all kinds of operators, and managers. The accuracy of the recruiting system is over 90%.

Investing in the Artificial Intelligence Market

The number of companies engaged in artificial intelligence in the world is overgrowing – the share of AI startups grew fivefold from 2015 to 2018 and amounted to 3,465, over a third of which were in the USA. The most significant number of such companies in 2017 was registered in the USA, almost 3,000. Companies continue to invest in the development of reinforcement learning applications. At last count, $ 31.7 billion was invested in this category. Also, significant funds are invested in speech recognition programs. This segment is projected to grow to $ 12.4 billion by the end of 2021.

Final word 

As the practice of the world’s largest companies shows, the automation of routine processes can improve the efficiency of a business. The use of innovative technologies based on AI can save time that previously had to be spent by people to process and analyze data manually.

Tips for Buying a Recruitment Business

Starting a brand-new venture is an exhilarating decision, but it might prove to be too much for so many in the current economy and competition. The fact that the recruitment industry is growing is inspiring many to kick-start their agencies, but if you’re more inclined to purchase an existing agency, then you might stand a better chance to succeed. You can use the business’s current reputation, expand on its image and client base, and not to mention the key people that have brought the business to life.

There are many options you can consider, from investing in a franchise that might be location-specific, all the way to purchasing an entire agency to expand the business with your expertise and know-how. Some mistakes are inevitable, but you can definitely avoid most. Here, you can learn more about buying an existing recruitment business, to make the most of your investment and set your new company up for success under your own leadership.

Consider keeping the core decision-makers

Assuming that you’re looking to purchase a stable business with a strong bond with the local community, you should keep in mind that people make that business much more than the brand name alone. It might be tempting to let go of everyone in charge and all the core staff, but this is not always the most prudent way to go about the purchase. Instead, consider discussing the option of retaining some, if not all of the key workers, especially decision-makers.

You can still run the business and grow it as the main investor and the CEO, but the existing recruiters and managers staying on will be your greatest assets. They are the ones with all the client connections and successful case studies. Talk it over with the seller and see if there’s a way to work it into the contract. 

Do your homework

You might be excited about the transaction and the negotiations might have been long already, but you should never land on a deal before you do all the necessary research. Collecting industry data to understand the trends and forecast any changes, understanding the existing client relationships with the agency, and getting to know the staff properly will decide the future of the business.

Think of it as another workplace and assess its levels of safety, both for the short and the long term. Can you say with some professional certainty that this business has a strong future with the local community and its existing client base? Are there any gaps in the onboarding/offboarding strategies the agency is using both internally and in the talent selection process for their clients? Make sure to understand the ins and outs of the business before you buy it.

Get location-specific legal guidance

Knowing the industry is one thing, but the process of buying a business has so many intricate, legal steps that you should always ask for professional guidance on the matter. Not to mention that each country has its own unique legal frameworks in place for such transactions precisely. If you’re looking to buy a Sydney-based business, you’ll need to work with experienced lawyers in Sydney whose expertise will help you protect your investment.

They not only know the local market, but they also know what kind of potential legal difficulties you might be looking at upon inspecting the company. Working together with financial experts, you can see if the company has a clean track record, with no fraud looming in the background, and of course, all taxes and contracts are taken care of. 

Consider a non-compete

Once again, when you work in a competitive city like Sydney or New York, there are many recruiting agencies to go around, which both means having many opportunities, but also many competitors. You don’t need another one when the seller decides to use their expertise and the recently obtained wealth to start yet another business in the same sector to compete with you. 

Make sure your purchase agreement has a non-compete agreement or a clause attached to it, so that you can protect the intellectual property you’re buying with the business itself. This agreement is one way to protect your newly acquired business from losing relevance immediately upon purchase, or coming across yet another setback on your way to growth.

Analyze your motivation and goals 

Having ample funds at your disposal to invest in a venture is a great way to advance as a professional, but you should be certain that you’re doing this for the right reasons. Ask yourself: are you experienced and respected enough in this business to run a company of that size and scope? Do you have the funds to keep the business running smoothly upon purchase?

Will you really, measurably benefit from purchasing this agency? Do you understand what it takes to run an agency, especially if this is your first attempt at running a business? Such questions might sound harsh, but they’ll help you evaluate your goals and driving force before you make the purchase. 

From the fine print in the agreement all the way to your financing plan, preparing yourself properly for the purchase will help you get started with your new company on the right foot. Remember, despite the fact that the industry itself is flourishing and there’s plenty of business to go around, it’s still up to you to make sure your company thrives, despite its pre-existing reputation and success. Use these tips to be certain that you’ve done all the work before you sign on the dotted line. 

The Importance of SEO for Recruitment

In today’s competitive market, being visible in search engines is critical for any business to thrive. So is driving web traffic to company career pages and social media accounts. Search engines and social media networks have become the top two resources when it comes to looking for employment opportunities.

But, there is more to this. Nowadays, people searching for a new job are screening their potential employers thoroughly. Before an applicant decides to send a CV and apply for a job, they will review the company’s website and social media pages.

Bear in mind that according to a study from MRINetwork, a bad reputation influences job seekers’ decisions significantly. If a company has a bad employer reputation, 69% of the job applicants said they would reject their job offer.

And with online search becoming prevalent in finding work, recruiters need to learn how to effectively use SEO to stay ahead of the competition and attract top talent.

How SEO works?

The purpose of search engine optimization techniques is to help businesses rank higher in search engines and improve their online visibility. Google and other search engines utilize algorithms to assess the importance and relevance of webpages.

Websites and pages that provide their readers with a lot of quality information about what they are searching for are more likely to get shown in the search results. The position of a certain website depends on numerous other factors too.

The overall quality of the website and how many and how often people visit it will also influence the ranking position.

Good SEO is a priority if you want top results. Optimizing many facets of the company website like keyword research, domain structure, and internal linking can impact the recruiting process and your efforts to find the best candidates for the job.

For example, due to bad internal linking, applicants may struggle to find the application form or the contact page on your website.

How can SEO help improve the hiring process?

Data from Australia indicate that the hiring time has nearly doubled in the last ten years. On average, it takes 68 days to fill in a vacant position. This can lead to diminished team productivity and a decline in revenue.

These data imply that recruitment teams and experts in Australia and all over the world need to think more strategically about how to hire the best talent.

Since many factors impact search engine rankings and Google’s algorithms keep changing, your company can profit from hiring an experienced SEO agency in Sydney. Search engine professionals specialize in optimizing websites and web content so they can help you boost your brand’s visibility and entice the most talented candidates to apply to your open positions.

Marketing and HR experts should work closely together, as their joint efforts can result in great benefits when it comes to brand messages. When HR departments are isolated, it can negatively impact the recruitment process.

HR plays an important role in internal and external brand communication. For example, a company’s website showcases its ethics, values, and goals, and it can attract either right or wrong job seekers for new positions.

That is why the design of the homepage and social media posts should reflect the voice of the HR.

Ensure your hiring efforts are successful

There are some valuable techniques every company should embrace to improve its hiring process. Using optimized keywords and phrases, page URL, page title, meta description, tags, and page length should all be taken into consideration when posting a vacant position online or publishing an article.

When crafting a job listing, it is vital to consider what specific terms and phrases you want the candidates to find you by. The description of the vacant position and the title need to include not less than three keywords relating to the most relevant qualifications your enterprise is looking for.

A clear job listing is a must, but you also need to inform the applicants about your company’s values and ethics. As mentioned earlier, people looking for a job are searching online to learn more about your organization’s reputation.

Make sure to tailor your job descriptions as well as your website to reflect the core values of your business. Including a page URL to the” about us” page or the official social media accounts increases the trustworthiness of the company.

It also helps the candidates to form an opinion about the company when deciding whether to apply.

The conclusion

Hiring workers with the right skill set and experience for the job can make a huge difference to the company’s performance and its profit. And even when unemployed, high-quality, engaged employees will carefully choose their next work engagement and employer.

So, finding qualified employees is all about creating more searchable job postings and proving that the company culture has something to offer them.

To achieve this, recruiters must invest in SEO. Crafting effective SEO strategies leads to quality candidates quickly finding open positions and applying to them. It also helps in developing a positive employer brand.

In other words, for a successful recruitment process in today’s tech-oriented world, a functioning, well-thought-out website with valuable content and user-centric design, adequate social media presence, and proper SEO techniques are essential.

5 Ways Candidate Feedback can Improve Your Recruitment Process

Nowadays, you can’t have an efficient and productive recruitment strategy that doesn’t include gathering feedback from your employees as well as your candidates. Why? Because we live in a modern day and age when people actually want to interact with their favorite brands, and no longer will they want to work for companies that don’t respect them, or have an amazing company culture. But having a positive workplace culture is not the only quality candidates are looking for nowadays, which is exactly why you need to gather relevant insights, listen to what they have to say, and use that information to optimize your recruitment process. 

Do this right, and you’ll be able to leverage that information to take your company forward as a whole. Your HR experts have a unique opportunity here to ensure all employees are treated equally and fairly while at the same time optimizing internal processes to maximize productivity, team cohesion, and long-term success. With all of that in mind, here are the five ways candidate feedback can help you achieve your goals. 

Discover what motivates the best of the best

The top candidate of today is a tricky beast to catch, and if you’re not careful, they will slip out of your hands just when you think the deal is done, and they will take a job at your competitor’s brand if the offer is more appealing. What makes their offer more appealing than yours, you ask? Nobody knows, at least we can’t be certain without the right information in our hands, and that’s why you need to gather candidate feedback and research the market thoroughly in order to find out what actually motivates the best of the best in your field. 

If you think they left for a better paycheck, you might be right, but it’s more likely that the top candidates choose some brands over others because of the additional perks they offer. Perks like more vacation days, flexible work hours, or a better, more wholesome company culture. Keep in mind that they might have uncovered something about your brand from your past employees that doesn’t sit well with them, but you won’t know that until you get in touch and ask them.

Strengthen your value proposition and brand

You can learn a lot about your brand, its strengths, weaknesses, or the unique opportunities you have and the threats you’re facing, by simply talking to the modern job-seeker. Now, it’s important to get the whole picture by gathering feedback from multiple sources, and these include your employees, potential employees, candidates who have applied for a position at your company, and the digital world as a whole. Be sure to monitor your brand’s reputation in the online realm at all times to see in what context people are mentioning your brand.

As far as your candidates go, they definitely have an opinion of your brand, one that they have formed on first contact. Their opinions can prove invaluable in shaping your employer brand and helping you build a better value proposition in time for the next cycle of talent acquisition. If you gather enough feedback from all these sources, you can create a more detailed analysis of your recruitment process and even your entire brand.

Obtaining continuous feedback with VoIP

Nowadays, it’s no longer enough to simply gather some feedback, craft a report, and think that you’re done for the year. Keep in mind that recruitment trends change continuously, and that the things candidates say today might completely change in the following weeks or months. This is why you need to continually gather relevant feedback by using a comprehensive communication system, something cloud-based like VoIP.

Given the fact that voice over internet protocol is a modern phone system with plenty of perks and handy tools, you need to find a VoIP provider that offers call analytics so that you can gather information quickly, but also conferencing tools, surveys, mobile communication, and more. These features will allow you to stay in touch with employees, candidates, and all other important actors on the job market so that you can keep collecting feedback to improve all of your processes throughout the year.

Make your onboarding process more efficient and effective

Onboarding new employees can be a grueling task even when you’re all working under the same roof, but now that you’re most likely hiring remote workers, the task can seem insurmountable. Luckily, you can make onboarding a breeze by adopting smart techniques, one of which is gathering feedback from your current and past employees, as well as candidates to figure out which parts of your onboarding process work well, and which should be improved. 

What you will invariably discover is that there are definitely some areas where your HR managers can make the lives of your candidates and new employees easier. The only way to discover them, however, is by listening to what they have to say.

Learn how to cultivate a winning company culture

Finally, keep in mind that no modern employee will want to work for a company that doesn’t nurture a winning workplace culture. Even if everyone is working remotely, you still need to create and preserve a positive company culture in order to welcome the new employees into your brand. To do this, gathering feedback will prove instrumental, so be sure to ask candidates what they consider to the ideal company culture, and then compare the answers to the feedback your existing employees gave. Collate your findings to craft a culture that works for all.

Wrapping up

Good business decisions are made on relevant, timely, and verifiable data. Instead of following your gut feeling, be sure to start gathering candidate and employee feedback to take your business forward and elevate your recruitment and onboarding processes.

How To Ensure Your Employees Are Treated Equally and Fairly

 

 

We often hear a lot about the importance of equality in the workplace. Equal treatment, equal pay, equal opportunities for advancement are all vital to the continued success of not just an employee, but for a business as a whole. However, many employees are also looking to be treated fairly, opening up the discussion of equality in the workplace even further. While fairness and equality might appear to be the same thing, they’re distinctively different and it’s important that companies strive for both at every level of their organization.

 

As managers, leaders, and HR staff, this means employees are expecting you to make the workplace environment one where the office policies are clearly stated and applied equally and fairly across the board. They also expect changes to be made if an individual or group is being treated unfairly. This is especially important as the world has finally started being more aware of what Black, Indigenous, and People of Color (BIPOC)  are forced to deal with at their place of work on a day to day basis.

 

So, how can companies and leaders ensure that their policies are not only providing opportunities for equality, but also fairness?

Equality Isn’t Always Fair

Equality is not always the same as fairness. Equality, while important, can leave out factors that contribute to an employee’s role within the company. Being fair involves considering all of the circumstances and making appropriate decisions based on those circumstances. Employees’ needs differ depending on their circumstances and equality can often leave out specific needs. Equality is like supplying every employee a work laptop, fairness is giving a visually-impaired employee a laptop with braille.

Always Be Prepared for Change

Every employee, wherever they work, wants to be shown by their employer that they’re valuable, their opinions and ideas matter and that they have equal opportunities for professional development and growth. This means that issues such as favoritism in the workplace can wreak havoc on employee morale and can breed resentment toward the company which is another reason why it’s important to treat all employees fairly in the workplace. 

 

It’s not only important to have policies that promote fairness and equality regardless of race, gender, sexual orientation, and age, but it’s imperative to enforce those policies equally too. Taking a look at current policies and identifying where improvement is needed is one way to make favoritism less likely to occur. Are there any rules that favor a particular group of employees over the other? Are all employees aware of the company’s rules and policies, including disciplinary actions? Is there any room for questions or different interpretations within the company’s handbook? It’s also necessary to look at who is being hired and who is most affected by injury, job loss, and discrimination within the company. 

 

Being a fair manager means that “When you treat your employees fairly they focus on navigating the challenges in front of them. They feel respected, cared for, and they develop trust in you as a manager. Instead of focusing on gamesmanship or one-upmanship, employees focus on working towards individual and group goals.” When employees are respected and treated fairly, the whole company is often able to operate as a cohesive team with equal responsibilities and better communication. Moreover, fairness and equality not only contributes to better meeting these needs but can also protect vulnerable groups from getting injured on the job. 

 

While certain fields of work are more labor-intensive and thus have more opportunities for severe injuries to occur, it isn’t just the kind of work that is harmful. Oftentimes, there is an unequal amount of pressure to work in unsafe conditions, especially for Hispanic workers and other minorities. When the work environment and policies are centered around equality and fairness, employees are not only likely to be more productive and have higher morale but it can help protect workers from injury. 

Fairness Benefits Everyone

Working towards maintaining a fair and equal work environment is also vital to a business’s clients. Cultural diversity in the workplace not only benefits the company and its employees, but it could potentially save lives. For example, while discussing the dangers of a lack of representation, particularly in healthcare, some professionals explain that “A lack of cultural diversity in healthcare can lead to many problems, including stereotyping and unequal patient treatment — particularly in cases where cultural differences in healthcare expectations lead to poor patient outcomes. Indeed, negative results are arguably inevitable when there is an underrepresentation of cultural and ethnic diversity in leadership and throughout training.” 

 

Cultural diversity can be hard to achieve when a manager is constantly undermining, discriminating against, or holding BIPOC to a different standard than the other employees. A business is likely to have a higher turnover rate if its employees believe they are being treated unfairly. This can also lead to new talent avoiding the company for fear of discrimination. Businesses with such a lack of diversity are likely to suffer losses financially and, in certain fields such as healthcare, could be putting their clients at risk.  

 

One way to ensure that employees are treated fairly is ingraining that importance into the company culture. Make it something so valuable that the company, managers, leaders, and employees are always striving for fairness and equality. This will make the work environment a more welcoming place to report and discuss areas of discrimination or unequal treatment. It will also encourage employees to voice their opinions more to help further improve policies and practices. 

 

It’s never too late to start enacting change that will help ensure employees are being treated both equally and fairly. Having an open, ongoing dialogue on how to improve company policies and how leadership can deliver said policies appropriately can help businesses stay committed to being a welcoming, equal, and fair place for everyone.