Once upon a time, the idea of looking into employees who work from their bedrooms in a different country was unimaginable. So was the idea of using virtual interviews instead of face-to-face conversations to choose the ideal candidate.
Apparently, the advance of technology has enabled companies, employees, and their many liaisons to work more efficiently and to find better-suited opportunities for one another in their respective industries.
If you’re an employer looking for ways to diversify your own employment practices, tech is perhaps your best way forward. If you’re looking for a job, chances are that you’ll find your next finest job opportunity with the help of tech.
No matter where your expertise lies, you can use these new solutions to your advantage so that you can advance in your career or help your business grow.
Let’s take a closer look at the many different ways in which this tech evolution has brought on a myriad of advancements in the recruiting sector and how you can benefit from them.
Reviews of all parties involved
It’s considered a norm to hand every successful employee a letter of recommendation so that they can find their next job with greater ease, and so that their future employer can check if their claims are truthful.
You’ll then get a better idea of who your candidates are, what their strengths have been in their previous jobs, and how they interact with other employees. This helps you make use of their strengths and make the most of their abilities.
But what’s interesting today is that the recruiter can be reviewed online as well.
Reviewing employers
The practice of reviews and recommendations is no longer limited to employees only. In fact, it’s useful to build a digital portfolio of employer reviews for each business out there, as it gives your future potential team members a more realistic, first-hand glimpse into your brand’s culture.
This in turn helps filter the less than optimal from perfect candidates, since reviews are the sincerest insight into a company’s culture. We now even have websites such as Glassdoor that specialise in collecting such data and employee feedback to give potential candidates an intimate glimpse into the given business.
Social media as a digital resume
Every single person trying to impress a potential employer will try to tailor their resume to fit the required criteria from the job posting.
They’ll emphasise the skills that apply to the job in question, focus on the portion of their education that best suits their needs, and they’ll craft a cover letter that brings out precisely the qualities and soft skills that are best for your position.
Enter: social media.
These networks may have started as platforms for personal interactions, to revive and rekindle relationships in families and beyond, but they are now a vital source of data for companies as well as employees.
Social media for employer branding
Visit any brand’s social media page, and you’ll quickly learn what their values are, what kind of audience they attract, and who their partners may be. Go to a candidate’s personal profile, and you’ll discover the same details of their life that may help you determine if they’ll enrich your company culture.
With the use of professional social networks such as LinkedIn, searching for your next dream job is significantly easier. Then again, employers have a chance to use these same networks to build their “employer brand” and make sure they connect with the right talented individuals.
Digital match-making
It is an arduous task to sift through hundreds of applicants’ resumes, their test results, interview information, and their social media.
For some companies, the time-consuming process comes with fewer merits than challenges, making it almost impossible to filter the finest candidates for their business before they actually find employment elsewhere. This is why job sites have become so popular in recent years, especially in competitive environments such as Sydney, Australia.
In the Land Down Under, companies make sure to advertise their job positions on specialised websites in order to make finding good jobs in Sydney easier for potential employees and ensure a good match. Talented individuals are able to find and examine every job position and assess whether or not the company shares their values.
The employer will, therefore, have an easier time acquiring talent. Using the same mindset and principle, you can also advertise your open positions on such websites that cater to your community and region in order to allow the top talent in your industry to discover you quickly.
Borderless employment
Having to restrict your choice of employees to a single country never seemed to be an issue, but now that you have access to a global pool of talented, qualified experts, you know the value of expanding your search to global waters.
With the help of digital platforms and project management tools, as well as communication tools such as Skype or Google Hangouts, companies now have the luxury of working with freelancers or fulltime remote workers from anywhere in the world.
That means that you can review the application of any qualified person out there, schedule a very effective interview, even fly them out to your offices if needed, and work with them remotely without any issues.
This simple, yet profound change in how tech has erased borders for companies and employees has allowed people to land dream jobs and employers to enrich their cultures like never before.
Image: Unsplash
Freelancing on the rise
In addition to erasing geographical borders for employers, this particular tech trend has changed recruiting in yet another way. It has enabled the rise of the gig economy, and thus a much more flexible relationship between employers and their workers.
More highly talented, well-educated individuals opt to work for a multitude of different companies at any given time. They handle multiple projects and they can work on the go, which allows them to see the world while they’re building a lucrative career.
So many talented, hard-working freelancers now choose this road that employers gladly work with them instead of sticking to full-time employment only. With access to platforms such as Upwork, employers can now look for exceptionally qualified people for a short-term task, or even a long-term collaboration.
Social media for job posting
Finally, we used to peruse newspaper ads for the next job opportunity, or share them with the people we know and trust through word of mouth. However, just as much social media has helped in getting to know the brand and the employee, these platforms are helping companies reach more interested people through social media ad posting.
Using social media to advertise available positions has become the norm, and it has increased every company’s chances of getting more applicants interested in their open positions.
Sponsored ads no longer refer only to those that target customers and buyers. Targeting potential employees through these paid campaigns tailored to your ideal candidate is a great way to garner more interest in your business in the role of an employer.
The rise of mobile recruitment
The mobile revolution is well under way, as job seekers around the world are increasingly browsing for open positions on their smartphones while on the go.
Remember, it’s a fast-paced world out there, and you need to adapt your recruiting process to include handheld devices and mobile platforms in order to expand your brand’s reach and attract the younger generations.
You can do this by taking advantage of AMPs (Accelerated Mobile Pages) on your website to make your landing pages easy to read on smaller screens, for example, but also by extending the recruitment process to mobile interviews and brand-applicant communication. In turn, this will yield a higher response rate on all of your job postings.
In summary
Recruiting has always been a complex process that requires careful selection to make sure everyone is happy with the outcome. Now that we have access to a wide range of tech tools, the process of recruiting has changed to become significantly simpler and more diverse for both the employee and the employer.
From utilising social networks to brand your company in this new light, post ads and contact potential employees, all the way to building trust through online reviews, tech has become an integral part of recruiting.
Use technology to your advantage, and a whole new world of opportunities will suddenly become available for your business to seek out qualified, eager people to work under your wing.
About the Author
Jacob Wilson is a business consultant, and an organisational psychologist, based in Brisbane. Passionate about marketing, social networks, and business in general. In his spare time, he writes a lot about new business strategies and digital marketing for Bizzmarkblog.com.
