The Employer Engagement Guide: 4 Ways to Keep Applicants Engaged Throughout the Hiring Process

Here’s Part Three of our Employer Engagement Guide! Ensuring applicants stay engaged means staying engaged yourself. Here are four things you can do to keep candidates engaged…

Employers are facing ferocious competition for recruiting Britain’s best and brightest talent. Recent figures show that the UK unemployment rate is slowly recovering, with roughly one in 20 people out of work. But, employers need to think about their candidate engagement strategies.

Simultaneously, the number of vacancies has risen over the past year to an astounding 829,000 job vacancies. Recruitment within the financial industry across England and Wales skyrocketed in 2021, with almost 80,000 vacancies posted and continued growth expected.

With such a high number of job vacancies but not so many jobseekers, companies are finding it a whole lot harder to find expert employees.

Because of this, employers need to think sensibly about their recruitment and retention strategies. So, how do you make sure your candidates don’t accept another job offer? How do you ensure your organisation remains the preferred choice?

1. Be quick to get back to candidates

Communication is key if you want to develop lasting professional relationships. How you engage and interact with jobseekers matters. It says a lot about your organisation’s ethos and brand. So, be quick to respond to emails – it can do wonders for your talent acquisition strategy. It demonstrates you care about your applicants and provide the support they require for success.

In today’s high-tech online world, many people expect a reply in a couple of hours and, at a push, within 24. You may lose out to another captivated organisation if you take your time to reply.

2. Up your communication

Keeping in touch with candidates entails more than just speedy responses. We suggest maintaining contact, as applicants welcome receiving updates on the process. The best employee recruitment strategies are the ones that place the most importance on speaking with applicants every week via email and catching up on the phone every fortnight. Be sure to maintain contact weekly, even if you have no update about the job position. Not doing so suggests you aren’t interested.

A great way to keep up communication is to invite applicants into your workplace for an informal coffee. An office visit enables applicants to get a better feel for the company culture, meet the staff, and develop their relationship with your firm even more.

In our opinion, some of the most effective recruitment strategies and practices involve sharing practical, informative information with your candidates to help them stay engaged during the long-winded hiring process. Sharing helpful information works just as well for creating a talent pool for imminent positions. Doing this also boosts your company’s reputation.

As part of your hiring strategy, consider sending content like how-to guides, interview guides, forthcoming events, recent company news, or blogs about your firm’s culture.

Sending valuable content is your best weapon to engage with would-be workers and encourage them to gain more of a glimpse about your company and why you’re the most desired employer.

3. Simplify the recruitment process

Competition’s fierce. So, it’s vital to streamline your recruitment strategy. While a multi-tier recruitment plan may seem like the best way to pick top talent, it can ultimately be harmful. Candidates may lose interest before they’ve made it beyond the first interview round or, worse still, receive a better job offer if your process is stalled or slow.

Sure, delays are unavoidable, but there are ways to simplify the recruitment strategy plan. For example, ask applicants to takes part in a brief assignment related to the said job during the first screenings. Alternatively, carry out a short 15-minute call.

For the second interview, we advise arranging it within one to two weeks. This is because applicants can suddenly be offered other positions. What’s more, get any critical onboarding paperwork and salary negotiations out of the way as soon as you can.

4. Develop a hiring pipeline

Even if you don’t have any job openings at the moment, communicating with candidates is essential. Numerous organisations hold previous candidates’ CVs on file for a certain period. However, you can go one step further by occasionally connecting with them.

Instead of inundating them with unsolicited job notifications (no one welcomes spam!), share valuable content, tailored emails, or applicable industry or company info. If you offer flexible working options such as work from anywhere (WFH) or work from anywhere (WFA), be sure to mention this, as all of these are attractive to candidates. Think about setting up employment profiles so that applicants receive appropriate notifications and emails.

Just as essential is to develop a powerful social media presence on platforms like Twitter and LinkedIn. This approach provides a platform for displaying your firm’s staff accomplishments, culture, and industry awards. In turn, this enables you to prove your company’s an industry leader and favoured company in the battle for talent.

Win the talent war

Market Talent has a glowing track record of sourcing the right candidates for the right firms. Our expert consultants will help you hire top-quality talent in your finance firm, so you win the war of talent. Reach out to one of our friendly specialists by calling +44(0)20 7971 7700 or email them at info@markettalent.co.uk.