What do the jobs market and communications technology have in common? They affect the way businesses hire top talent, and are both in the midst of undergoing rapid change. As employers have shed the cautious hiring behavior that plagued them during the recession and adopted far more confident hiring strategies, today's executive candidates have become more empowered than ever.
Armed with improved communications technology, these candidates are also able to move on and engage with opportunities quicker and more interactively than they would have just a few years ago, placing a much heavier demand on employers to bring in talent creatively and immediately.
In a piece for ERE Media, Dr. John Sullivan noted several ways this new hiring landscape would change the way companies would need to approach attracting top talent. Of the new hiring trends he identifies, the following will have a major impact on organizations looking for new executives:
- Making attractive offers: While job offers were almost always accepted when the job market looked bleak, its positive upswing has improved candidates' ability to say "no." This will force companies to make more attractive offers so that they can retain top talent after a successful interview.
- Attracting A-players with recruiting videos: More than just a means to reach candidates wherever they are, mobile devices actually register a higher response rate than other communication platforms. Considering half of all mobile traffic is spent consuming videos rather than still images or text, Dr. Sullivan suggests employers use videos to convey job descriptions, employer branding messages and other candidate-engagement efforts.
- Hiring as talent becomes available: While in the past companies only hired when they had a specific job that needed to be filled, Dr. Sullivan suggests businesses fighting for their share of the limited talent on the market be ready to hire at all times. "Yes, this means that you will hire some talent a few weeks before you need them," he says, "but that results in a lower cost than being unable to fill jobs at all because no qualified talent is available when one of these high-volume positions eventually opens up."
Working with a retained executive search firm can help your company identify and engage talented executive candidates as soon as they become available.
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