There’s a lot of buzz today around the acquisition of Paradox by Workday. 

On the surface, this looks like a power move. It combines a top enterprise HCM system with an automation tool designed to streamline candidate engagement. But beneath the headlines, the deal raises bigger questions about how HR leaders should think about the future of recruiting technology. 

The Bigger Picture: What Acquisitions Signal 

Workday’s acquisition of Paradox is just the latest signal that AI is essential in HR tech.

For years, automation in talent acquisition was viewed with caution. It was useful in theory but often limited in practice. Now, even enterprise platforms are investing heavily to add AI-driven functionality to meet rising expectations from recruiters and candidates alike. 

This deal reflects a broader truth. The pressure to reduce time to hire, improve candidate experience, and operate at scale is pushing every provider, from niche vendors to legacy HCMs, to rethink how technology supports talent teams. 

But adding AI as an afterthought or bolt-on feature does not solve the core challenge. What today’s recruiting environment demands is more than a chatbot or workflow assistant. It requires platforms that are secure, intelligent, and built for outcomes. 

What the Future of Recruiting Tech Requires 

The next generation of HR technology must do more than automate single functions. It needs to be: 

Always On and Candidate-Centric
According to SHRM, modern recruiting tools are increasingly expected to support candidate engagement around the clock. As AI becomes more integral to hiring, systems must meet candidates when they are ready to interact, not just during business hours. HR Dive also notes that the pressure to maintain a strong candidate experience is driving employers to invest in automation that helps recruiters focus on strategy rather than logistics. 

Outcome-Based, Not Activity-Based
Recruiters should prioritize measurable results like time to interview, quality of hire, and application conversion. The focus should not be on chatbot interactions or volume of automated tasks, but on delivering candidates who are qualified and ready to move forward. 

Secure and Scalable by Design
With rising concerns around privacy, bias training, compliance, and recent data incidents across the HR tech landscape, security must be built into systems from the start. It is no longer a nice-to-have. It is a baseline requirement for trust and scalability. 

Why Leoforce Is Leading the Way 

Leoforce was built for this moment. Not to catch up to where the industry is going, but to lead it forward. 

Our Career Site Agent is more than a chatbot. It is a high-converting, secure, and customizable assistant that acts as an extension of your recruiting team. 

• Human-like conversations that guide candidates in real time 

• Customizable flows aligned with your tone, brand, and goals 

• Secure architecture using AWS Cognito and role-based access 

• Lower costs and stronger results compared to legacy vendors like Paradox 

• Modern AI architecture built for scalability, security, and real recruiting impact, not outdated chatbot overlays 

And that’s just one piece of the Leoforce platform. 

We also deliver: 

• Applicants on Demand that eliminate 98% of sourcing work 

• Programmatic Advertising with pay-per-applicant pricing 

• Source and Engage and Talent Rediscovery tools that revive your existing ATS pipeline 

All powered by outcome-based pricing and built to integrate into your current stack. No disruption. No downtime. 

The Takeaway for HR Leaders 

So, what does this mean for HR and TA leaders? 

The future of HR tech is not about piecing together different tools and hoping for synergy. It is about choosing platforms that are secure, adaptable, and focused on outcomes. Ones that make recruiting easier for teams and better for candidates. 

That is the standard we have set at Leoforce. It is why employers across healthcare, logistics, security, and retail are turning to us as their AI recruiting partner of record. 

Ready to see how secure, responsible AI recruiting can transform your hiring?
Learn More About Leoforce’s AI Recruiting 

The post When Big Acquisitions Meet Big Questions: What HR Leaders Should Take Away from the Workday and Paradox Deal  appeared first on Leoforce.

Here’s a recap of what we covered: 

Why Most Career Site Visitors Never Apply 

Jerika kicked off the session by addressing the core challenge: 70–90% of career site visitors never finish an application. The reasons? Poor user experience, lack of real-time support, and misalignment between the job opportunities presented and what candidates are actually looking for. 

Today’s candidates expect more from their job search. They want fast, mobile-friendly experiences with instant answers and transparency around pay, culture, and process. When those expectations aren’t met, they leave—taking your pipeline and recruiting ROI with them. 

AI-Powered Engagement That Actually Converts 

Jerika then introduced how Leoforce is helping teams reverse this trend with intelligent automation. She walked through our Candidate Engagement Agent—a branded, always-on solution that meets candidates where they are. It handles screening, answers questions, matches resumes to jobs, and schedules interviews automatically—all while keeping recruiters informed. 

Importantly, this isn’t about replacing recruiters. Jerika emphasized that AI works best as an enhancer. It takes on the repetitive tasks—freeing recruiters to focus on what really matters: building relationships and closing top talent. 

Amit Thakur joined to share how Spectraforce brought this approach to life. Facing high traffic but low conversions on their career site, Spectraforce deployed the Leoforce Candidate Engagement Agent to help scale hiring across hundreds of roles and thousands of visitors. 

The results were significant: 

• 88% increase in career page interactions 

• 77% growth in candidate pool 

• 40% improvement in engagement 

• 20% boost in recruiter efficiency 

The tool gave their team 24/7 coverage and helped ensure no qualified candidate slipped through the cracks, especially outside of standard business hours. 

Check out the full case study here. 

Smart Rollouts, Measurable Impact 

To wrap the session, Jerika shared best practices for getting started with AI engagement. Her guidance: don’t overhaul—just optimize. Start by adding a real-time agent to your career site with ATS integration, then layer structured screening logic, calendar-based scheduling, and feedback loops. 

The final takeaway? AI engagement tools aren’t just a nice-to-have—they’re a fast, scalable way to reduce candidate drop-off, accelerate time-to-hire, and improve candidate quality without adding to recruiter workload. 

Missed the live session? Watch the full webinar recording. 

The post From Click to Candidate Webinar Recap appeared first on Leoforce.

As technology continues to develop rapidly, artificial intelligence (AI) has emerged as an important tool to help staffing teams and recruitment agencies maximize profits. Although there are lots of AI recruitment tools available, many recruiters have dipped their feet into the field through ChatGPT.

Why ChatGPT for Recruiting?

ChatGPT is a generative AI tool that creates human-like text, images, and videos based on prompts that you submit. The tool responds instantly and is available in multiple languages. ChatGPT makes it possible for you to use AI in recruiting to easily complete routine or repetitive tasks, including resume screening, candidate outreach, and interview scheduling.

You can use ChatGPT to streamline communication, provide intelligent responses, and increase productivity — as long as you’re using the right prompts.

Five ChatGPT Recruiting Prompts to Boost Efficiency

While ChatGPT is an incredible tool, it’s not human and can’t read between the lines. To get the best responses from ChatGPT, make sure the prompts that you input are specific and have a clear objective.

Whether you’re using ChatGPT to write job descriptions or create email templates, you should always treat its initial responses like a first draft. If the initial response isn’t hitting the mark, follow up with feedback or additional details to help ChatGPT refine its response. Always review and refine the text to ensure it includes all necessary information and reflects your company’s culture before using it to interact with candidates.

Here are five ChatGPT prompts you can use to help automate recruitment processes.

Prompt 1: Revise Job Descriptions

A job description that accurately describes the position and its requirements is crucial to attract high quality candidates, but writing an effective job description isn’t always easy. If you’re hoping to appeal to passive candidates — those who aren’t actively looking for a position but who may be interested in the right opportunity — the pressure to write an engaging job description is even greater.

ChatGPT can help revise job descriptions to make them more inclusive and attractive to candidates, streamlining your candidate sourcing. Assume you want to fill an opening for a truck driver with a commercial driver’s license and long-haul experience, but you feel the job description is a little dry and doesn’t capture your company’s culture. You could input the job description into ChatGPT along with this prompt: Rewrite this job description to be more engaging and appeal to candidates who share our company’s values of safety, innovation, and hard work. 

You can also use ChatGPT to make your job descriptions more searchable online by telling it to include job-specific or industry-relevant keywords. ChatGPT can even translate your job description into another language, although you should always have a native speaker review it for accuracy.

Prompt 2: Generate Interview Questions

ChatGPT is a great tool for generating interview and screening questions. Use it to refine your current list of questions, tailor them to a different role, or create an entirely new set of questions.

Details you’ll want to include in your ChatGPT prompt include the industry, position title, and any key attributes you want to ask about. Try a prompt like this one: Create five screening questions for a senior software engineer role focusing on problem-solving and team collaboration.

Prompt 3: Streamline Candidate Outreach 

Using ChatGPT can even make communication with candidates easier. The tool is especially helpful for creating message templates. Try a prompt like this: Write a follow-up email to a candidate, saying that I was impressed by their responses during the screening call and want to schedule an interview between them and the hiring manager. 

A prompt to generate an email gauging a candidate’s interest in a position could look like this: Write an email to a candidate saying I’m impressed by their background and ask if they’d be interested in applying to a software engineer position. 

You’ll be able to use these templates to quickly create personalized email and InMail messages to candidates to increase engagement by as much as 15%. Using ChatGPT makes personalized candidate engagement at scale feasible.

You can even take your personalization a step further by using ChatGPT to customize a message to your candidate. Include a few specific details, such as a particular skill or experience that the candidate included on their resume, in your prompt. Just be sure to leave out the candidate’s name or other identifying information in your ChatGPT prompt to avoid any privacy concerns.

Prompt 4: Summarize Interview Feedback

ChatGPT can improve hiring efficiency by summarizing large amounts of text. For example, use ChatGPT to streamline the post-interview process of consolidating feedback on a candidate. To receive a summary of the feedback that you can share with the hiring team, input the collected feedback into ChatGPT along with a prompt like this one: Summarize interview feedback from three panelists for a product manager role. Highlight feedback on the candidate’s leadership skills and technical knowledge. 

Prompt 5: Report on Recruiting Metrics

Analyzing data and creating reports can be tedious, but you can simplify the process by using ChatGPT for reports. The tool can quickly generate summaries of results and analyze recruitment metrics based on the data you input.

Create a report that you can share with stakeholders by inputting your results and using this prompt: Summarize this quarter’s recruiting performance based on the following metrics: number of hires, time-to-fill, and offer acceptance rate. 

The Benefits of AI-Driven Recruiting with ChatGPT

A key tool in your recruitment efforts, ChatGPT has positively impacted talent acquisition. Using ChatGPT for HR and recruitment tasks will allow you to automate your processes, increase personalization, and make better data-driven decisions. Letting it handle tedious tasks, like generating interview questions and summarizing feedback, will free up time for you to provide a more personalized experience to your candidates.

Using ChatGPT is a great way to start weaving AI into your recruitment efforts, but you’ll see even more benefits by tapping into automation and machine learning tools. Solutions like Leoforce’s Source and Engage, Applicants on Demand, and Programmatic Job Advertising can automate up to 90% of manual recruiting processes while learning from successful recruiting patterns to help find the right candidates for every role. Visit Leoforce.com to find out how you can elevate your recruiting process with AI today.

The post Five Ways You Can Use ChatGPT for Recruiting to Boost Efficiency appeared first on Leoforce.

Amidst the intense competition for skilled professionals, ensuring a positive impression of your organization is crucial. By implementing effective candidate engagement best practices, companies can differentiate themselves and cultivate meaningful connections with potential hires.

In this article, we delve into key candidate engagement strategies for 2024, exploring how to navigate high-volume hiring scenarios while prioritizing candidate experience and improving recruitment outcomes.

The impact of candidate engagement

Picture this: A candidate applies for a job at five different organizations. Out of those, three respond. In one scenario, there’s a robotic, impersonal exchange via email—a stark, black-and-white connection lacking any personal touch. In contrast, the other two organizations utilize both automated systems and human representatives from HR. These representatives engage with the candidates, discussing not only the job but also the company culture, expectations, and even listening to the candidate’s aspirations.

This scenario exemplifies the essence of candidate engagement. It’s more than just interaction; it’s about setting the stage for the entire hiring process. By creating a positive environment and meaningful interactions, organizations can lay the foundation for recruitment success.

In the subsequent section, we’ll explore how the smallest of efforts can yield a multitude of candidate engagement benefits that drive organizational success.

Attracts high-quality talent

Personalized interactions make candidates feel valued, attracting top-tier talent who are more likely to be engaged and committed to their roles.

Employer branding for a positive brand perception

Meaningful engagement contributes to a favorable employer brand perception, enhancing the organization’s reputation and attractiveness to potential hires.

Reduces time to hire

Efficient engagement streamlines the recruitment process, leading to quicker hiring decisions and reducing the time it takes to fill open positions.

Reduces cost per hire

Effective engagement minimizes resources spent on prolonged hiring processes, leading to cost savings by attracting candidates who are the right fit from the start.

Creating a positive candidate experience is not just a subjective notion; it’s a measurable aspect of recruitment success. Candidate experience metrics, such as Net Promoter Score (NPS) or Candidate Satisfaction Score (CSS), provide valuable insights into the effectiveness of engagement efforts.

Top candidate engagement strategies for recruitment success

Optimising the application process

The first step in candidate engagement begins with the application process. Make it seamless, user-friendly, and optimized for mobile devices. Streamline the process by eliminating unnecessary steps and providing clear instructions.

Ensure that the application form is concise and easy to navigate, reducing the likelihood of candidate drop-off. Emphasize mobile job applications and user-friendly interfaces to enhance accessibility for candidates.

Personalized communication

Tailor communication with candidates to make them feel valued and respected throughout the recruitment journey. Use their names in emails, acknowledge their application status promptly, and provide personalized updates on their progress in the hiring process. Personalized communication in recruitment demonstrates your organization’s commitment to fostering meaningful connections with candidates.

Transparent and timely feedback

Keep candidates informed about their application status and provide feedback promptly, whether they are moving forward in the process or not. Transparency builds trust and enhances the candidate experience, even for those who may not ultimately be hired. Timely feedback also allows candidates to adjust their job search strategies accordingly.

Interactive job descriptions

Enhance candidate engagement by creating interactive job descriptions that go beyond the typical list of responsibilities and qualifications. Use multimedia elements such as videos, employee testimonials, and virtual tours to provide a comprehensive overview of the role and the company culture. Interactive job descriptions capture candidates’ attention and give them a clearer understanding of what to expect, increasing their likelihood of applying.

Showcase employer branding on social media

Highlight company culture, values, and employee benefits on the careers page as well as on social media platforms. Utilize employer branding on social media to showcase the organization’s unique attributes and attract potential candidates who align with its values and culture.

Leverage recruitment technology

Employ applicant tracking systems, chatbots, and AI-powered tools to streamline communication and improve the candidate experience. Utilize Candidate Relationship Management (CRM) systems to maintain and nurture relationships with candidates, ensuring a personalized and efficient recruitment process.

Provide clear hiring process, updates and timelines

Keep candidates informed about the hiring process timeline and their current status. Provide visibility into where candidates stand in the process, such as whether their application has been viewed or reviewed. Clear updates empower candidates with knowledge about their application progress, enhancing their engagement and reducing uncertainty.

Interview prep tips

Offering interview preparation tips can engage candidates and reduce interview anxiety. Providing guidance on common interview questions through video tutorials or guides empowers candidates to feel more confident and prepared.
By addressing candidates’ concerns and equipping them with resources to alleviate stress, organizations enhance the candidate experience and increase interview success rates.

Career growth opportunities

Highlighting career growth and future prospects can significantly engage candidates in long-term opportunities with the organization. By emphasizing future prospects and development pathways, organizations can attract candidates who are looking for advancement and professional growth.

Additionally, incorporating AI-driven career path simulations and suggestions further enhances the candidate experience by providing personalized guidance and insights into potential career trajectories within the organization.

Learning and development programs

Highlighting the role of learning and development programs is essential in engaging candidates and showcasing the organization’s commitment to their growth. By emphasizing opportunities for skill development and career advancement through structured learning initiatives, organizations can attract candidates who prioritize continuous improvement.

Additionally, integrating AI-powered training modules and personalized learning paths enhances the candidate engagement experience by tailoring learning experiences to individual needs and preferences.

Employee testimonials and success stories

Sharing employee testimonials and success stories can have a significant impact on candidate engagement by providing insights into the organization’s culture and work environment. Organizations can showcase real-life experiences and achievements of current employees and present themselves in a positive light while giving candidates a glimpse into what it’s like to work there.

Human resources can leverage AI-generated content to quickly create these testimonials and stories, ensuring more efficient candidate engagement while maintaining authenticity and relevance.

Hosting events and networking opportunities

Hosting events and networking opportunities is a valuable strategy for engaging with candidates and building relationships within the talent pool. By organizing events such as job fairs, industry conferences, or networking mixers, organizations can create platforms for candidates to interact with recruiters and learn more about the company culture and career opportunities.

Online networking events, especially in the current scenario, provide a convenient and accessible way for candidates to connect with recruiters and industry professionals from anywhere in the world. Organizations can leverage AI-based event management platforms to streamline the planning and execution of networking events. These platforms offer features such as online registration, virtual event hosting, and attendee engagement tracking, making it easier to manage both offline and online networking events efficiently.

Engagement analytics and channel effectiveness

Utilizing analytics to understand the most suitable engagement channels can significantly enhance recruitment efforts. Understanding the effectiveness of different engagement channels allows organizations to allocate resources more efficiently and focus their efforts on channels that yield the best results. This data-driven approach not only improves the overall candidate experience but also enhances recruitment efficiency by maximizing the impact of engagement initiatives.

Additionally, leveraging AI-powered analytics platforms can further enhance the effectiveness of analytics in recruitment. These platforms utilize advanced algorithms to analyze large volumes of data and provide actionable insights for optimizing engagement strategies.

Utilising an interactive hiring portal for better candidate engagement

Implementing an interactive hiring portal offers numerous benefits for enhancing candidate engagement. Such a portal provides candidates with a seamless and user-friendly platform to interact with the organization throughout the recruitment process.

Furthermore, organizations can leverage AI-driven chatbots within the interactive portal to facilitate easier candidate interaction. These chatbots can provide real-time assistance to candidates, answer frequently asked questions, and guide them through the application process. By integrating AI chatbots, organizations can streamline candidate interactions, improve response times, and enhance overall engagement.

Using SWAG for top of mind recall

Expanding on the importance of employer branding, organizations can further solidify their presence and engagement by integrating offline strategies. By leveraging branded marketing collaterals, such as merchandise and promotional materials or SWAG, organizations can extend their reach beyond digital platforms.

These tangible items serve as useful reminders of the organization’s brand identity, reinforcing positive associations and fostering lasting connections with candidates. Organizations can incorporate offline elements into their employer branding efforts to effectively elevate their visibility and position themselves as top contenders in the competitive talent market.

Survey candidates for continuous improvement

Regularly survey candidates to identify any gaps or areas for improvement in the hiring process and candidate experience. Gathering feedback directly from candidates allows organizations to make data-driven decisions and implement changes to enhance the recruitment process continually.

By incorporating these candidate engagement strategies, organizations can enhance their recruitment efforts, foster positive candidate experiences, and strengthen their employer brand. In the next segment, we’ll explore additional strategies for building strong connections with candidates and driving recruitment success.

Measuring candidate engagement

To gauge the effectiveness of candidate engagement strategies, it’s essential to track key metrics that provide insights into the recruitment process’s performance. Here are some crucial candidate engagement metrics:

Application completion rates

Measure the percentage of candidates who successfully complete the application process. A high completion rate indicates that the application process is user-friendly and engaging.

Time to hire

Track the time it takes to fill open positions from the moment a job is posted to the candidate’s acceptance of the offer. A shorter time to hire indicates an efficient recruitment process and a positive candidate experience.

Offer acceptance rates

Measure the percentage of candidates who accept job offers. A high offer acceptance rate signifies that candidates perceive the organization positively and are eager to join the team.

Candidate satisfaction scores

Utilize surveys or feedback mechanisms to gather candidates’ satisfaction levels throughout the recruitment process. Candidate satisfaction scores provide valuable insights into the overall candidate experience and help identify areas for improvement.

Social media engagement rates

Monitor engagement metrics on social media platforms, such as likes, shares, comments, and clicks on job postings and employer branding content. Social media engagement indicates the effectiveness of employer branding efforts and the organization’s attractiveness to potential candidates.

Additional tips and best practices

In addition to the core candidate engagement strategies, there are several additional tips and best practices that organizations can implement to further enhance their recruitment efforts:

Video interviews

Provide candidates with flexibility and a human touch by offering video interviews. Video interviews allow candidates to showcase their personalities and skills from the comfort of their own environment, while also providing a more personal connection with the hiring team.

Employee referral programs

When an employee recommends a candidate they know and trust, there’s already a layer of credibility and trust established, making the candidate more likely to be a good fit for the organization. Implementing an employee referral program with referral bonuses can be a powerful strategy for engaging existing employees and attracting top talent. Referral bonuses incentivize employees to refer qualified candidates to their organization by offering monetary rewards or other incentives for successful hires.

To enhance efficiency in managing referrals, organizations can utilize AI-based referral tracking systems. These systems streamline the referral process, automate communication with referrers and candidates, and provide valuable insights into the effectiveness of the program. By leveraging technology, organizations can optimize their referral programs and maximize the impact of employee referrals in attracting top talent.

Focus on diversity, equity and inclusion

Demonstrate your organization’s commitment to diversity, equity, and inclusion in job postings and engagement strategies. Highlighting DEI initiatives not only attracts a diverse pool of candidates but also fosters an inclusive and welcoming work environment. Incorporate language and imagery that reflects diversity and inclusivity, and actively promote DEI values throughout the recruitment process.

The future of candidate engagement with AI

As technology continues to evolve, the future of candidate engagement is increasingly driven by artificial intelligence (AI) solutions. One such innovative platform is Leoforce by Leoforce, revolutionizing the recruitment landscape with its AI-powered capabilities.

AI-powered personalisation

Leoforce utilizes AI algorithms to personalize the candidate experience, tailoring communication and interactions based on individual preferences and behavior.

Predictive analytics

Leveraging predictive analytics, Leoforce forecasts candidate behavior and trends, providing insights into job acceptance likelihood and identifying potential candidates.

Built-in diversity indicator

Leoforce features a built-in diversity indicator that helps mitigate unconscious bias and promote diversity and inclusion in the hiring process.

Candidate relationship management tools

Leoforce offers comprehensive CRM tools to streamline candidate engagement processes, including automated follow-ups and targeted outreach campaigns, enhancing recruiter-candidate relationships.

Final Thoughts

Throughout this article, we have emphasized how prioritizing candidate engagement not only improves the candidate experience but also strengthens employer branding, reduces time to hire, and fosters a diverse and inclusive workplace culture.

As you reflect on your recruitment strategies, consider how you can incorporate candidate engagement best practices and leverage tools like Leoforce to streamline your processes and drive recruitment success. By prioritizing candidate engagement, you can create meaningful connections with candidates, attract top talent, and propel your organization towards hiring excellence.

The post Candidate Engagement Strategies: Your key to attracting top talent appeared first on Leoforce.

With almost all functions of the workplace ecosystem employing artificial intelligence, why should Human Resources be left behind? This article explores how artificial intelligence is helping human resource officers strategize and scale candidate engagement in a post pandemic landscape.

Let’s ask the big questions first. What is candidate engagement in recruitment? More importantly, why is candidate engagement such a big deal in today’s recruitment scenario?

Before we understand what is candidate engagement, here are some quick insights into why candidate engagement matters.

1. A Talent Board report stated that 53% of candidates in a survey audience revealed that employers and recruiters can take longer than 3 months to respond to a job application, sometimes not at all.
2. In a report by IBM, it was stated that a whopping 30% of candidates interested in joining an organization prefer to join because of positive candidate experience.
3. Careerarc’s survey report suggested almost 70% of candidates want organizations to optimize the recruiting process.
4. SHRM reported a 60% drop out rate among candidates because the application filing process was overly complicated.
5. As per Forbes, 72% of candidates are highly likely to call out organizations for a negative candidate experience – directly impacting their reputation.

While there is no specific definition for candidate engagement, it is essentially the process of ensuring constant communication with candidates at every step of the recruitment process.

Today, recruitment is not just limited to successfully bringing candidates in the door. Candidate engagement is a significant step in inbound recruitment processes and ensures that candidates get a well rounded overview of an organization’s work culture from the get go. There is also the obvious benefit of a decrease in the applicant drop out rate. Like customer experience, candidate experience is also receiving prominence. After all, a candidate also counts as an external stakeholder to an organization.

Fundamentally, candidate engagement is mapped across five essential steps. Let’s understand these steps and learn where artificial intelligence can come into play while carrying out these steps.

Using AI to engage with candidates at the awareness stage

Machine learning is typically introduced to carry out tasks at the grassroots. This obviously means it could be highly beneficial for Human Resources to incorporate artificial intelligence at the very beginning of the candidate engagement process.

While AI can help recruiters quickly filter through hundreds and thousands of job applications, it can also help recruiters fill out their application forms and answer any questions or queries that applicants might have about the job opportunity and the organization. An AI chat bot can easily walk applicants through the application filing process. AI can also be used by applicants to upload existing resumes or plug in resumes from job boards like LinkedIn and easily fill out applications. AI can help ensure that the drop out rate while filing job applications be brought down significantly.

Using AI to engage with candidates at the candidate consideration stage

Once the candidates have expressed interest in an open opportunity, their applications must reviewed. LinkedIn says that any job posting receives around 250 applications on an average. Obviously an organization is not going to move all 250 applications to the next step. They are likely to zero in on about 10% of the interested applicants and move them toward the next round. But what happens to the rejected pool of applicants? If there is an average waiting period of 2-3 months for potential candidates to wait for a response; and finally hear that their application has been rejected, it throws doubts on the organization’s work culture. After all, a rejected candidate is not going to be afraid of calling out an organization for its poor engagement skills.

Through machine learning, HR managers can set up auto responders and let candidates know about the status of their application. In fact, HR managers can use AI to go a step further and encourage applicants to sign up for job alerts and build a database of interested potentials for faster recruiting in the future.

Using AI to engage with candidates at the candidate interest stage

Traditional recruitment practices like hiring on the basis of educational qualifications and past experience are phasing out fast. Today, organizations are looking at understanding a candidate’s hands on knowledge and skill set that will help them survive and thrive in a work place. That is why organizations usually offer assessments to shortlisted candidates. Using artificial intelligence, these assessments can be marked and analyzed for candidate aptitude. AI can even point out any unethical practices while attempting the assessments. That’s right, no cheating! Imagine having to assess coding tests for hundreds of candidates during a campus recruitment drive. It is time consuming, it is expensive and there is a high risk of assessor bias. But these challenges can be easily overcome using machine learning. This step also pushes the most eligible candidates forward, making the HR officer’s job a lot easier.

Using AI to engage with candidates at the candidate evaluation stage

If you are wondering whether artificial intelligence can be used to negotiate salaries, then yes, it can. A 2017 Pew Research Center survey stated that 1 in 4 employed women said they have earned less than a man[2] doing the same job. Often, salary offers are based off of industry best practices, current economy, race, gender, the organization’s capacity to pay and sometimes, just what HR believes is the right offer as per their gut. But candidates don’t want an offer letter based off of someone’s gut feeling, do they? Here’s what AI can do to help.

AI removes the personal bias and does not discriminate and suggest offering a lower salary because of factors like a candidate’s age, gender, or race. What AI can actually do is help level the playing field, perhaps even decrease the gender pay gap. Using AI, HR officers can gather actionable insights into the current job market and easily match it with the candidate’s expectations – this gives candidates an equal opportunity and boosts an organization’s image as an equal opportunity recruiter.

Using AI to engage with candidates at the candidate closing stage

Organizations often face candidate drop out after days, weeks and months of of assessments, reviews, interviews and salary negotiations. That is why it is critical to keep candidates engaged even after rolling out an offer letter. Here’s where artificial intelligence can prove to be handy. With AI, Human Resources can easily design and conduct e-learning courses and make use of interactive materials to keep candidates engaged during the onboarding process. AI can be used to help with product and brand training, HR orientation, regulatory and compliance training, workplace culture indoctrination and even soft-skills training. The use of artificial intelligence in candidate onboarding is becoming very popular as it saves Human Resources a lot of time and is a lot more efficient than manual onboarding. Moreover, with remote operations becoming the new normal, it is a much easier for larger organizations to onboard a large number of candidates simultaneously.

Human Resources around the world are leveraging the power of AI to enhance the candidate experience at multiple stages of recruitment with a view to build an end-to-end holistic candidate integration and onboarding experience. Now that you know how artificial intelligence can be used to optimize candidate engagement, is your organization’s HR department ready to hop on to the AI bandwagon?

References

[1] https://www.mckinsey.com/featured-insights/future-of-work/the-future-of-work-in-america-people-and-places-today-and-tomorrow
[2] https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2019/03/22/gender-pay-gap-facts/

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Traditionally, hiring managers would post a job on a job board and wait for applicants to get in touch. This not only meant a slow start to the recruitment drive but also a lot of jobs not reaching the right talent pool. With social media, this changed drastically, with over 85 percent of employers relying on social media to find and engage passive job seekers^[1]. When it comes to decision-making, earlier, the ball used to be in the employer’s court, but now over 50% of candidates consider an employer’s reputation to join a company^[2]. It clearly stresses the other aspect of candidate experience, which deals with managing communications inside the workplace.

Candidate engagement is a vital aspect of any recruitment process, as companies are finding out. Irrespective of whether an aspirant finally gets selected or not, it is imperative that they have a good journey throughout the entire process, thereby leaving a positive impression on their minds. At the same time, it helps influence candidates to keep in touch with the company via social channels even if they don’t make it.

In this article, we will look at a few pertinent statistics that indicate why candidate engagement tools and strategies are necessary. But before that, let’s get the basics of candidate engagement clear.

Candidate engagement definition and importance

Candidate engagement is the procedure and the evaluation of consistent communication with a pool of candidates.

The objective at the base level is relationship-building with aspirants throughout every stage of the recruitment process. It also includes measuring how well candidates felt during the same. The importance of candidate engagement lies in boosting the interest of aspirants in the organization, while enhancing overall employer brand value, and building a better pool of candidates for the future.

Some best practices of candidate engagement include swiftly reviewing aspirants, consistent communication with candidates across every stage, prompt timelines and scheduling, offering helpful information about the company to candidates, and garnering feedback on the process.

10 insightful statistics on candidate engagement

We have selected the most impactful and insightful statistics relating to candidate engagement to help HR managers take note and map out a suitable strategy.

71% of candidates do their homework before applying to any organization

According to reports, most aspirants will do their homework on your organization before applying. This means that they will be going through the company website, reviews of employees, and other information online. They will also be looking at your pages on LinkedIn in this regard. You should thus ensure that your company information is updated at all times and that social media posts reflect the company culture.

75% demonstrate positive responses to better job descriptions

A good job description is critical for candidate engagement. 75% of people appreciate descriptions that have more generic and easy-to-understand language without excessively formal and jargon tonality. However, excessively casual descriptions with emoticons and hashtags may create an unprofessional vibe. So, you should aim to strike a balance between formal-informal and informative-engaging job descriptions.

61% of prospects desire compensation data in job descriptions

A mistake that companies often make is leaving out compensation details in their job descriptions. Candidates prefer seeing this information since it may be a driving factor in whether they apply or not. Having a salary figure or range will save a lot of time eventually. Candidates who have to go through the hiring process only to discover that the salary does not meet their desired expectations for the job duties in question leave in bad taste.

67% of candidates prioritize empathy and straightforwardness in DEI messaging

DEI (diversity, equity, and inclusion) is already a key organizational aspect that should not be neglected. Most applicants are used to going through generic messaging on the company’s commitment to diversity. However, they appreciate more action-oriented information and empathy in the same. If you can show the talent pool your emphasis on DEI, then it will naturally make you stand out.

74% of aspirants seek more chances to showcase their work portfolio during hiring

Most aspirants are eager to learn new things from specific job roles and also to apply their knowledge and skills from their experiences and education. Companies should ensure that they give candidates ample opportunities to highlight their skills, knowledge, and prior experience throughout interviews, assessments, and other tasks. This will show them that you are interested in what they have to bring to the table.

48% of people ask for interview timing well in advance for preparation

Aspirants want more time to prepare for interviews. Companies should always help them out with helpful details of the interview aspects, what they can expect, and so on. Transparency in this regard, along with dates and times beforehand, will create a positive impression of the company in the minds of candidates. This also shows that you value their time above everything else. Inform candidates in advance about the timings, dates, the number of interviews, what information they have to provide, which people will be interviewing them, and other details – especially in case of postponement.

52% will continue relationships with companies giving them proper feedback

Irrespective of the outcome of an interview, candidates always desire feedback on their performance. Most aspirants are likely to continue their relationship with the organization if they receive suitable feedback on what was good and what they can improve on. This helps aspirants build better skills for the future while boosting employer branding.

7% of aspirants get phone calls from hiring managers/recruiters on rejections

Along the line of the previous point, there is a need for consistency in the candidate engagement process, as only a few people get phone calls from their hiring managers or recruiters if they are rejected. A personalized message from a hiring manager may also be handy and empathetic in easing the disappointment of the aspirant. This shows that you value the time invested by the candidate in your organization.

49% of new recruits get calls from hiring managers before their starting dates

Upon the acceptance of a job offer by the candidate, they should go through an impeccable onboarding journey. Hiring managers should call new recruits before their starting dates, giving them a chance to ask and get their questions answered, welcoming them to the team, and letting them know what they can expect in their first few days at the company.

82% take the company’s reputation and brand into account prior to applications

There is no limit to what employees may want, but what candidates want before even considering applying for a company – employer’s reputation. It is not only a company that chooses an employee; prospects also choose the companies they wish to apply to. This statistic clearly underscores the need to uphold, showcase, and maintain your brand and overall reputation.

The state of candidate engagement before and after the pandemic

The nature of candidate engagement has evolved throughout the pandemic, with changes in the way recruiters and candidates interact,  and the tools used to attract and retain top talent.

Before the pandemic, in-person interviews were the norm, and candidates were more likely to visit company offices or have telephonic interviews. Once the pandemic hit, social media and virtual communication tools got an unprecedented boost as both candidates and recruiters adapted to the change. The focus shifted to creating engaging virtual experiences for candidates through video interviews, online assessments, and virtual career fairs.

Now as we enter the post-pandemic times, the effect of virtual shift still lingers. Hybrid work models may become more common, and recruiters may need to adapt to new ways of engaging with both remote and in-office workers. Post-pandemic, the recruitment industry may continue to evolve and prioritize flexibility, inclusivity, and leveraging technology to improve the candidate experience.

Takeaways

HR managers have long known that candidate engagement is non-negotiable throughout the hiring process, and the data backs it up. A major point to remember while creating a candidate engagement strategy is to focus on valuing candidates’ time and energy. It also highlights the need for suitable candidate engagement tools to automate communication, scheduling, assessments, and other vital tasks, freeing managers and recruiters to focus on personalization and relationship-building.

If you are looking for a candidate engagement tool, we recommend exploring that powered by AI. AI recruitment tools are comprehensive in nature to help out with various tasks during the entire recruitment drive. Some, like Leoforce Quantum, go a step beyond with their Artificial Intuition dimension to help make informed decisions at each step. Take a demo to see for yourself how AI hiring tools can help reshape your entire hiring process.

References

[1] https://www.apollotechnical.com/social-media-recruiting-statistics/

[2] https://www.glassdoor.com/employers/blog/most-important-employer-branding-statistics/

The post Understand these 10 candidate engagement stats to revamp your recruitment drive appeared first on Leoforce.

Investment in candidate engagement is vital for saving HR teams time and resources. So, with that in mind, this article presents the five stages of candidate engagement you should understand to implement in your hiring strategies. But first, let’s get a primer on candidate engagement itself.

What is candidate engagement?

Candidate engagement is the technique and tracking of timely communication with your candidate throughout the recruitment process. It can be done online or face-to-face. The objective is to keep all candidates informed, with proper updates on steps and information on an organization, while keeping them engaged enough to avoid dropping off the recruitment process without coming to a conclusion. 

This automatically equates to the candidate being in sync with the organizational culture and more likely to be a better fit upon being hired. Creating proper processes with candidate engagement tools that come with AI recruitment software can be helpful as companies can take care of recruiting while ensuring seamless engagement on the same platform.

That said, let’s jump right on to the candidate engagement stages:

5 Stages of Candidate Engagement

As a recruitment drive has various stages for candidates in the pipeline, the communication requirements and frequency are different. The process for candidate engagement can be divided into five major stages:

Raising Awareness

The first step – awareness – is essential since before any candidate applies for any open job position, they should get the basic requirements of the vacancy and organization. They should also have information on the value proposition on offer for future employees. 

Here are some key aspects to kick-start your candidate engagement on the right note: 

• It starts off with recruitment marketing, i.e., the mechanism for drawing more skilled/qualified aspirants into the recruitment pipeline. 
• This will cover job descriptions, job/career portals, presence on professional platforms, and so on.
• Recruitment marketing can only be successful by tapping suitable technologies such as ATS (applicant tracking systems), AI sourcing tools, and other solutions for showcasing your company in the best possible manner.
• Employee referral is also a proven technique

Nudging Consideration 

Once the candidate knows more about your organization, they will consider whether to submit an application and how.  It would help if you strived to make this decision easier for them by suitably showcasing and highlighting all the reasons why working for you will be beneficial for them. Update all your company’s online channels across career sites, social media platforms, profiles on LinkedIn or Glassdoor, etc. In this regard, an AI recruiting tool can save you from the hassle of pushing relevant posts on multiple platforms in one go. 

How to do it the smart way: 

• Employee testimonials are a powerful way of communicating company culture to the outside world and even candidates.
• Try blogs, videos, and quotes from present employees in the organization. 
• Candidates will appreciate an insight or inside view of the company.

Building Interest

You already have your candidates engaged with the company at this stage. You now have to build their interest. With their shift through the recruitment funnel, they will now go deeper into your job descriptions and see whether they fit the requirements. So, you should focus on writing descriptions with care from the get-go. 

While language and presentation are the keys, below are some other practical tips:

• Refrain from sounding generic, vague, and unexciting.
• Revisit and change your job descriptions while strategically highlighting the essential rewards and benefits. 
• Have links to resources for helping candidates build interest and Learn More about the organization.

Assisting Assessment

The candidate is well and truly within the system at this juncture. You can now assess their fit for the company and job role in question. Make sure that you refrain from putting off aspirants due to an interview procedure that is complicated, irrelevant, and lengthy. 

You should focus on the questions that really matter, helping you get down to the brass tacks without unnecessarily fluffing around. For convenience, you can have a basic template, i.e., the candidate’s availability for the job role, the best and worst things about their previous job, why this position attracts the candidate, and how the candidate would fix a specific problem.

Closing Candidates

Now that the candidate has already applied and, post analysis, received an offer, you should close it out for seamless onboarding. Remember that you should set up every new hire for maximum productivity. Here’s how:

• You should also get all the official paperwork done, including background checks, signatures, etc. 
• You should also get candidates interested in their new job roles and responsibilities. Start by extending a heartfelt welcome to a new recruit with all the team members in tow.
• You can arrange for a token of appreciation like a company voucher, a handwritten card from the team, a gift or goodie box, a hamper, and so on.

Takeaways

Ensuring an informed, engaged, and updated prospective cohort of candidates increases the chances of attracting the top talent. This demands critical planning of all aspects and stages of candidate engagement. When you have a large number of candidates, it makes sense to automate parts of it. It’s a good sign that several global organizations plan to invest in various technologies for candidate engagement like video job descriptions (65%), job description optimization (55%), text-based recruiting (48%), predictive analytics (31%), interview scheduling (29%), etc [1].

Here, candidate engagement tools like Leoforce Quantum shine out as, in addition to candidate communication, they help with sourcing, sorting, and selecting candidates. Ask for a demo today to see how Leoforce can scale and speed up candidate experience levels in sync with company strategies.

FAQs

What are the different stages of candidate engagement?

The stages of candidate engagement can be divided into: Awareness, Consideration, Interest, Assessment, and Closure, which basically covers everything from rolling out vacancy to onboarding the candidate.

Why is candidate engagement critical?

Candidate engagement is vital for a number of reasons, including enhancing candidate interest, building employer branding, attracting quality leads, and more.

What are the challenges of candidate engagement?

The significant challenges of candidate engagement include an overload of applications, drop-outs/ghosting, lengthy recruitment processes, one-way communication, etc. Most of these can be taken care of using AI-powered candidate engagement tools to save time and effort.

Reference

[1] https://financesonline.com/candidate-experience-statistics

The post 5 stages of Candidate Engagement: Ideas & best practices appeared first on Leoforce.

“A well-written job description can mean the difference between a trickle or a flurry of qualified applicants. Conversely, a poorly written job description can significantly expand the number of unqualified applicants. Writing a good job description requires an ability to prioritize essential skills and qualities while also ‘selling’ your company to job seekers.”

Now you know why you should prioritize writing attractive, effective job descriptions. Read on to learn how to do it.

Get insights from internal teams

Know what the job entails before writing the description. This step might include speaking with or interviewing people in similar positions within your organization to get a feel for their routine. Talk to the people the candidate would report to, so you can understand what their expectations are.

Don’t limit the description to what the job looks like now. Everything (people, businesses, jobs, etc.) evolves with time, so you should also consider what the job may entail in the future. This will help you craft a description that not only excites a prospect about the immediate possibilities but also encourages them regarding the potential for future growth.

Frontload the most critical information

Frontloading is a writing technique in which you provide the most important “big picture” information first and follow it with additional specifics.

In the case of job listings, the job title and subheading (or first paragraph) are your way of frontloading the information that job seekers care about most. When they see what they’re looking for right off the bat, they’ll go on to investigate the finer details.

What do they want to see, you ask? According to a LinkedIn study of 450 job hunters, the top three job particulars they wanted to see were:

1. Compensation
2. Qualifications
3. Job details (hours, location, specific duties, etc.)

Further down the list were things like performance goals, company culture, company mission, career growth, and company details. These elements do in fact matter, but more important information like qualifications and job details should come first.

Keep it simple

OnGig CEO Ron Kelly says, “Since your job descriptions are usually the foundation for your job postings/ads, you want them written like ad copy…not a legal contract.”

The average American adult reads at a seventh or eighth-grade level. So, if you write dense job descriptions with jargon, you’ll lose their attention. Keep things simple and straightforward without “dumbing down,” which can come across as insulting.

Be succinct

Along the lines of keeping it simple, descriptions should be as short as possible while still including all the important details. After all, the average adult’s attention span is eight seconds! That’s how long you have to get (and retain) someone’s attention.

Candidates should be able to locate the most essential information quickly, which is where frontloading comes into play. Get to the point and keep your sentences and paragraphs short. Don’t include a long list of qualifications that any one human being could possibly have.

Get personal

As humans, we’re inherently self-centered beings. As such, job seekers are more interested in what you can do for them – not what you want them to do. Highlight compensation, benefits, and growth opportunities.

Try to write your job descriptions in the first or second person (i.e., “you” and “we”) rather than the third person, which can sound impersonal. For example, try to say things like, “Your responsibilities will include” instead of “The successful candidate will…”

Stay professional

Don’t force your description to come off as jazzy, creative, or cute. Not everyone is receptive to pandering like “We’re looking for a programming ninja” or “Are you a sales rock star?” To avoid turning away candidates, stay professional.

Respectful, professional language is free from all inherent biases. Your job listings should never discourage people from applying because they feel they wouldn’t be welcomed due to their race, gender, age, neurodiversity, etc.

Frequently asked questions

Who is responsible for writing a job description?

This question doesn’t have one right answer, as it largely depends on the size of the company. If you’re an HR Manager for a business with 30 employees, for instance, you might take on this responsibility.

At a startup, the person who will supervise the new hire may be the one to write the description. Larger organizations likely have a recruitment team that handles a task like this.

How do you write a powerful job description?

Powerful job descriptions are clear, realistic, simple, respectful, and professional. They engage the jobseeker without resorting to gimmicky language.

A description should grab the reader’s attention quickly by placing the most important information first, highlighting what the company can do for them to encourage them to read further.

What should you avoid when writing a job description?

• Don’t make your job titles or descriptions too long
• Don’t get cute with your job titles or descriptions; stay professional
• Don’t focus on your company; focus on the applicant
• Don’t use unnecessary jargon or inflated language
• Don’t write job descriptions in the third person
• Don’t leave typos in your postings
• Don’t leave out benefits and salary information
• Don’t forget to check for and eliminate all inherent age, race, gender, or any other type of bias in your job descriptions

What’s the most important part of a job description?

Arguably, the most important part is the subheading (or first paragraph) to the job title since it serves as the first impression for your company and the job itself.

Is it clear and compelling? Does it contain all pertinent information like job title, pay range, and hours or shifts? If not, candidates may pass it on.

Want to find the best candidates?

It may be difficult to find candidates who match the specific skill sets and abilities that your company requires. You can tackle this challenge with Leoforce Quantum, an AI recruiting tool that can be easily integrated into your existing ATS or VMS. You’ll find qualified candidates faster while simplifying the recruiting process.

This technology also allows you to communicate with potential candidates via text, email, and chatbot, all in one consolidated chat board. You can communicate the skills you want from an employee and answer any questions that candidates may have.

Leoforce empowers you to achieve your recruitment goals, ensuring that your hiring process puts you in a position to find the right people every time.

The post How to write job descriptions that attract candidates appeared first on Leoforce.

“I still had a viable candidate. And in a way, they made my job easier,” said the executive vice president. “I was surprised at their decision and wanted to make sure we, as a company, hadn’t done anything to scare them away.”

This story isn’t all that uncommon. Candidates can drop out of the hiring process for many reasons. Sometimes, like in this case with Adams Bank & Trust, the candidate’s change of heart doesn’t cause a major problem. In other cases, however, the withdrawal can be costly for the employer in terms of both time and money. This is especially true if it means starting the recruitment process over again from the beginning.

Here are seven reasons why candidates might choose to drop out of the hiring process and what you can do about it.

They don’t feel the company is a good fit

When applicants accept an interview, they may take note of the workplace atmosphere and notice whether the interviewer and other employees look happy and busy. They’ll likely ask questions about your company’s policies and procedures, or things like the training culture, company values, and other elements that’ll affect their job satisfaction and lifestyle.

If a candidate doesn’t feel comfortable with what they see and hear, it could be a deal-breaker.

Solution: Keep the workspace tidy, comfortable, and appealing. Creating an inviting culture should be a priority.

 A long and difficult application process

A candidate’s first interaction with your company is the job listing and application themselves. A long and complicated process can cause potential applicants to give up right away.

In fact, Dr. John Sullivan, professor of management at San Francisco State University, says nine out of 10 potential applicants drop out when confronted with a wearisome application process.

Solution: Streamline your application process. Don’t ask for more information than you need at this early stage in the game.

A negative interview experience

Who’s conducting the interviews? Are they good brand ambassadors? Do they represent what you expect from your employees?

An interviewer who comes across as demanding, impatient, unhelpful, arrogant, critical, or uninterested can be the kiss of death. Similarly, suppose the candidate arrives unprepared for the interview because nobody told them where to go, who to talk to, or what to expect. In that case, it can leave a bad taste in their mouth about your organization’s ability to lead.

Solution: Give the candidate as much information as possible about the interview. Make sure interviewers represent your company well. 

Lack of communication

In a survey of 179 candidates, 75% said they had withdrawn an application at least once in a two-year period. 87.5% of those respondents blamed “communication issues” for their change of heart. In other words, the company failed to keep the candidate informed.

A candidate not knowing where they are in the hiring process or even if they’re still in the running can be very frustrating. It can also raise red flags about what working for your company might be like.

Solution: Communicate with applicants. Keep them updated as they move through the process and let them know what’s coming up. Never “ghost” anyone you’ve made contact with.

The hiring process wasn’t efficient

The time it takes to make a salary offer (or reject the candidate) could be taking too long even though you feel it’s not. In today’s world where every second matters, people don’t want to wait several weeks to hear back after an interview. Nor do they want to wait a month after a phone screen to know if you’ll be reaching out to them for an interview.

Solution: If your hiring process takes time and can’t become more efficient, disclose this fact to the candidates as soon as possible so they know there are reasons for having to wait. If you feel the process is indeed lacking efficiency, meet with your HR/recruiting team to review every aspect of your current process. Put yourself in the applicant’s shoes – how would you want the hiring process to go? Make an actionable plan to implement changes.

They received a better offer elsewhere

Most job seekers apply for more than one job at a time. You may not be the only one courting the candidate, and they may find the other shoe to be a better fit for any number of reasons, including pay, benefits, flexibility, remote options, culture, etc.

Solution: Stay competitive with pay and benefits, but also realize you can’t win over every candidate. Be gracious, wish the person luck, and let them know your door is always open should circumstances change.

Misconstruing the job description

This may sound like a “them” problem, but it’s actually an “us” problem more often than you realize. Perhaps your job description is too vague or leaves out important responsibilities. Or, conversely, it may sound too demanding or intimidating.

Candidates don’t want to feel under or overqualified for a position, and you don’t want to encourage anyone to apply that isn’t qualified. Nor do you want to scare away potential diamonds in the rough.

Solution: Make sure job descriptions are realistic, reasonable, and transparent about expectations and requirements.

Slow decision making

When an organization is slow to make a hiring decision, it can be disheartening for applicants who need to get on with their job search. Other decisions may ride on whether or not they get the job, especially if it means they’ll need to relocate.

If the candidate runs out of time to make these other big decisions, they may feel they need to drop out simply so they can move on.

Solution: Keep in mind you have other people’s futures in your hands. Try to move things along as quickly as you can, while still being thorough. Communicate frequently to help applicants feel that you’re making progress.

Leverage AI to Decrease Candidate Drop-Off

Is your recruiting team taking full advantage of digital resources to find and retain the best candidates?

It may be difficult to find candidates who match the specific skill sets and abilities that your company requires. You can tackle this challenge with Leoforce, an AI recruiting tool that can be easily integrated into your existing ATS or VMS. You’ll find qualified candidates faster while simplifying the recruiting process.

The Leoforce Candidate Engagement Agent helps you kick-off the candidate experience on the right foot from the very beginning. The Candidate Engagement Agent, powered by Agentic AI, delivers dynamic, human-like conversations that guide and qualify candidates in real time, whether they’re browsing your site, uploading a resume, or applying without one.

It adapts to candidate responses with intelligent branching logic, auto-schedules interviews through calendar tools, and follows up with timely reminders. All while reflecting your brand’s voice. Fast to deploy, simple to manage, and built to increase conversions, it helps you do more with the traffic and talent you already have.

Leoforce solutions also allow you to communicate with potential candidates via text, email, and chatbot, all in one consolidated chat board. You can communicate the skills you’re looking to obtain from an employee and answer any questions that candidates may have.

Leoforce empowers you to achieve your recruitment goals, ensuring that your hiring process puts you in a position to find the right people every time.

Frequently asked questions

Who should be involved in the hiring process?

Ideally, the people involved should have a stake in the outcome – managers, direct team members, etc. They’ll be able to best answer a candidate’s questions about the job, and they’ll also be most invested in making a good impression and finding the right fit. However, you shouldn’t have so many people involved in the process that you have too many “cooks in the kitchen” to be able to make a decision.

How many candidates should we have in our pipeline?

You want to strike the right balance between having enough applicants in the pipeline to recover should one or two candidates drop out, and not having so many that the process becomes too long. Much depends on the size of the company and the job description itself, but three to five serious candidates is a realistic number.

Should the hiring process be customized for different positions?

To a certain extent, yes. Many elements will be the same, like applications and interviews, but you can customize the application process and interview questions based on the job. Whoever is conducting the interview should have input. Not only will customization feel more personal and authentic to the applicant, but the interactions and answers you get will be highly relevant.

How does the hiring process impact the candidates’ experience?

Unless a candidate is already a follower of your company or they’re connected in some way, the hiring process is likely the very beginning of their experience with your organization. It sets the tone for the whole relationship, giving them their first impression of your culture and what working for the company would be like. Having a pleasant, streamlined hiring process is imperative to keeping people in the pipeline.

The post 7 reasons why candidates drop out of the hiring process appeared first on Leoforce.

Simply posting a job description and waiting for the right candidate to apply doesn’t always work. You’re limited to whoever chooses to apply, regardless of whether they’re truly qualified for the role. Passive recruiting opens the door to a much bigger pool of talent, making it easier to identify candidates with specific skills or experience.

Struggling to source candidates to join your team? We’ll explain why you should invest in passive recruiting and how to get started.

What is passive recruiting?

Passive recruiting is the practice of attracting potential candidates to your business who aren’t actively looking for a job. This can include networking with other industry professionals or referrals from employees.

By adding passive recruiting to your talent acquisition strategy, you’re able to broaden your talent pool and attract qualified candidates who may not be actively looking for work but are open to new opportunities.

The benefits of passive recruitment for your organization

There are several benefits of investing in a passive recruitment strategy, including:

• Creating a larger pool of talent to recruit from
• Lower competition. Passive candidates are less likely to be interviewing with other businesses
• Competitive advantage by sourcing top talent, regardless of their current work status
• Improving your employer brand by fostering relationships with passive job seekers
• Identifying potential candidates with a specific skill set for hard-to-fill positions

Passive recruiting strategies

Here are five ways to apply passive recruiting to your recruitment strategy.

Start a customer referral program

Good people know good people, and your employees are no different. Encourage staff to recommend family or friends that may be a good fit for the organization. Offer an incentive like a one-time bonus or an extra paid vacation day.

Engage with your existing talent pool

Use an applicant tracking system (ATS) to organize candidates for previous roles. Although some of these candidates may not have been a match for the position they were applying for, they could have the skills and experience to fill a new vacancy.

Reach out to these applicants to see if they’re still looking for work or open to a new opportunity. Tell them about the new role.

Source passive candidates through social media

Since so many people spend time on social media, it’s become an increasingly popular tool for recruitment. Using LinkedIn Recruiter, you can search passive candidates based on their job titles or skills. You can contact both active and passive candidates through InMail.

You can also use other channels like Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram to highlight your company’s culture and values. Consider engaging with prospective candidates.

Network with other industry professionals

Take advantage of industry networking events like conferences, trade shows, or meetings to connect with passive candidates. You can use a website like Eventbrite or CitySocializer to discover events happening near you. Introduce yourself, the company you represent, and any job openings to potential candidates who may be a good fit.

Use online job boards

Sites like Indeed and Workopolis allow you to search active and passive candidates based on their industry, skills, experience, and education. Once you’ve identified a potential fit, reach out to see if they’re still searching or open to a new opportunity.

Tips for recruiting passive candidates

Here are a few tips to help you successfully recruit passive candidates.

Build your employer’s brand

How potential applicants view your business matters. 75% of Americans would refuse a job with a company that has a bad reputation. Building your employer brand is one way you can improve your reputation among staff and potential job candidates.

Initiate a conversation

Start by introducing your company and the opportunity to the potential candidate and ask them to schedule a brief call to share more. If they say no, move on. They have your contact should they change their mind. Use the phone call to highlight the requirements of the role and what they need to know about the organization.

Improve your candidate experience

Create a frictionless recruitment process to keep passive candidates interested and engaged. Send the job description and benefits package to prospective applicants right after your initial phone call so the opportunity stays top of mind. Respond to questions or inquiries right away and make it easy for the candidate to apply for the role.

Highlight growth potential, perks, and benefits

A passive candidate isn’t looking for work because they already have a job. So, what perks, benefits, or opportunities can you offer that their current employer can’t? Typical motivators include:

• Better compensation
• More or better benefits
• Remote or hybrid work
• Flexible work schedule
• Work/life balance
• Opportunities for development

Frequently asked questions

What is meant by passive talent?

Passive talent or passive candidates are those currently employed and not actively looking for a new job. These candidates may be open to new opportunities depending on compensation, benefits, or other perks.

Are passive candidates better?

Passive candidates are typically better because they’re carefully selected based on their skills and experience with respect to your position’s role and responsibilities. Passive candidates are 120% more likely to want to make an impact in their new role and 17% less likely to need skill development.

How many candidates are passive?

70% of the global workforce are passive candidates who aren’t actively looking for work. If you’re not applying passive recruiting to your talent-sourcing strategies, this means you’re left with the remaining 30% of active job seekers. It’s a much smaller pool to source candidates from.

How do you approach a passive candidate?

There are several ways you can approach a passive candidate, including:

• Encouraging referrals from your current workforce
• Finding candidates in your existing talent pool
• Sourcing new candidates through social media
• Networking events with other industry professionals
• Searching job boards such as Indeed and Workopolis

Take advantage of AI to attract passive candidates

Is your recruiting team taking full advantage of digital resources to find passive job candidates?

Even though 70% of the world’s workers are considered passive, it may be difficult to find candidates who match the specific skill sets and abilities that your company requires. You can tackle this challenge with Leoforce Quantum, an AI recruiting tool that can be easily integrated into your existing ATS or VMS. You’ll find qualified candidates faster while simplifying the recruiting process.

This technology also allows you to communicate with potential candidates via text, email, and chatbot in one consolidated chat board. You can communicate the skills you’re looking to obtain from an employee and answer any questions that candidates may have.

Leoforce empowers you to achieve recruitment goals, helping your team connect with passive candidates.

The post Passive recruiting: What is it and how to leverage It? appeared first on Leoforce.

Email communication fundamentals

Craft a compelling subject line

It’s imperative that you craft a compelling subject line for your email. More than half of all email recipients evaluate the message solely based on the subject line. You want to make sure that your subject line is clear, honest, direct, and tailored to the recipient. It’s possible that you won’t find the perfect solution until you try a few other things.

Use a two-line “hook-line” to introduce the purpose of your email. This teaser provided context for the candidate and enticed them to keep reading the email.

An outstanding email for prospects will include the company name, details about the job or function, and the reference or source of this hiring.

Your email’s main body should still contain a lot of useful details. Reduce the candidate’s concerns while maintaining clarity. Link to relevant resources and make short references to save space.

In addition, the dialogue should gradually lead up to the primary purpose of the exchange.

Strategically structure your email

A call to action should be included in the final paragraph of the email. Say “thank you,” “show your excitement,” and “urge them to take proper actions” such as completing a form, replying to emails, setting up interviews, and submitting further documentation.

If you want to avoid confusing your potential customer, avoid using a muddled closing. Sets forth the specifics of what, how, and when the candidate’s response is expected to be made.

Keep it brief

Writing lengthy emails with a lot of fluff is a bad way to get your point across. Make a mental list of bullet points to help you write a clear and concise email.

If you feel the need to provide more detail in your email than is strictly necessary, you may always include relevant links or file attachments. Typically, this is data that is easily accessible elsewhere or of little significance.

To save the other person the trouble of digging through an email chain, copy and paste relevant information from previous exchanges into the current email.

Make generic email templates for use, as necessary. You may adjust them to fit your needs and save time. With practice, you may learn to strike a happy medium in your interactions with others. Get feedback from a few trusted team members on these sample documents.

Get personal

Unfortunately, over 70% of today’s email communication with candidates is canned and impersonal. Research shows that the open rate for personalized emails increases by a factor of six.

Instead of using shorthand phrases like “candidate” or “aspirant,” start by using their full name. Recall a conversation you had with them or highlight the qualifications that make them an ideal candidate. You may go even further by picking out specific accomplishments or events that stood out to you on their LinkedIn page.

Staring at your screen while composing an email might make you forget that real people are on the other end of the line. Someone with emotions, worries, and responsibilities of their own. Remember this and write emails that are soothing and kind. As a result, people will like you more and think of you in a positive light, as you will be seen as fair and approachable.

Automated servers that flood leads’ inboxes with spam benefit from the added credibility provided by personalization. In time, this helps others feel comfortable opening to you in conversations. This tone of the conversation is helpful when advertising for senior-level or niche positions.

Stick to the context

The context of an email’s writing is also quite important, and it’s important to keep the same context all throughout the email.

If you’re an HR professional, you know how crucial it is to impress a candidate via email for you to stay connected with them. Keep track of the emails that come in and make mental notes on the topics that interest you.

A professional email should not provide too many clues. It should outline the singular purpose of the meeting, from a relevant topic line through a clear call to action. You want your emails to stand out from the pile of spam that fills up job boards and inboxes of competitive firms.

Learn how to follow up effectively

Writing follow-up emails is a common task for recruiters. Increasing customization in this case would help build trust. Follow up with the applicant, letting them know why you haven’t heard back from them, and asking if there’s anything else you can do for them.

Many human resource managers are swamped with work and pressed for time, so it might be tempting to communicate with them via email. However, it’s easy to come out as harsh or indifferent as a human resources manager because of the variety of sensitive topics they may have to deal with. The average company sends and receives hundreds of emails every day, and it’s easy for important messages to get lost in the shuffle. The good news is that there are eight simple ways that HR may boost their email communication.

Get support

Human resource managers often have a wide range of skills, although writing might not be one of them. Moreover, time is not always on your side when sifting through a huge pool of applicants. You need a combination of artificial intelligence (AI) recruiting tools and specific applicant engagement solutions to help you manage your email correspondence with applicants.

Know when to avoid emailing

There are situations when an email, no matter how quick and easy it is, is simply not acceptable. Especially when breaking bad news and needing to show empathy, which is impossible to do by email.

Finally, remember the basics, including using legible fonts, colors, and sizes, and creating an email signature that reflects the personality of your firm. Add appropriate branding to your emails to reflect your firm’s values.

Writing quality emails has become an unsaid rule of people management. It’s not a quality that we look out for, but it sure helps to have the right skills and create an impression.

An unclear email can lead to a domino effect of errors, misinformation, and confusion. Especially as an HR professional, your emails become a representation of your virtual personality. A potential candidate can decipher the tone and voice of an establishment merely based on this first impression.

Frequently asked questions

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There are many factors that impact turnovers, such as employee satisfaction, company culture, and pay and benefits. But 80% of all employee turnover is a result of poor hiring decisions.

Finding the right fit for a role isn’t always easy. As recruiters navigate through stacks of resumes, only to find one or two candidates that fit the base requirements, hiring managers struggle to move the hiring process along. Those candidates may end up at other companies. 

The process is a vicious cycle that can be hard to break. But with the right candidate sourcing tools, you can alleviate pressure on your recruiting team, find the right candidates with ease, and move the hiring process along quickly. 

Suggested resource on HR starategy: How to build HR flexibility and resilience post-COVID

Today, candidate sourcing technology is more popular than ever, yet it can be difficult to find a full-stack, out-of-the-box tool that covers all the bases… until now.

What is a Candidate Sourcing Tool?

To improve the end-to-end candidate experience, you can use candidate sourcing tools that streamline the process. These tools have many different features, but at a high level, they assist with: 

• Actively sourcing candidates
• Reviewing resumes
• Using artificial intelligence (AI) recruiting techniques to narrow down the applicant pool
• Finalizing a list of potential candidates to pursue

The sheer volume of resumes, candidates, and data that you must sift through is too much for any one person. With candidate sourcing tools, much of the process can be automated or assisted by technology, making hiring more efficient and more likely to last.

Suggested resource for candidate hiring: https://leoforce.com/webinars/recruiting-strategies-to-attract-a-more-diverse-candidate-pipeline/

Why are Candidate Sourcing Tools Important?

Before any interviews can start, the right candidates must be identified, contacted, and convinced to apply. Through traditional hiring methods such as job boards, temp agencies, and staffing companies, hiring managers seem to be finding fewer top-tier candidates. 

Since 70% of potential hires are considered “passive talent” – meaning they’re not actively looking for a job – traditional candidate sourcing techniques won’t reach them, missing a substantial portion of the applicant pool.

Technology will change how you think about your candidate sourcing strategy. Today, finding internal and external candidates that fit specific parameters can be completely automated with smart technology. 

Once these tools find a list of potential candidates, they can review candidate information to identify people with the highest chances of success in the role. Cushioning the candidate sourcing process with technology allows recruiters to focus on candidate engagement, interview coordination, and effective follow-up.

5 Factors That Make a Candidate Sourcing Tool Perfect

There are a lot of candidate sourcing tools on the market today, but not all are created equal. It’s better to invest in a tool that costs a bit more but can deliver what’s needed, as opposed to piecemealing together multiple tools that all do different things. 

The right candidate sourcing tool will feature the following:

Access to Multiple Job Boards

You know there are countless job boards and sifting through them all by hand is impossible. The best candidate sourcing tool can access all the top job boards, as well as smaller, niche boards, sifting through thousands of candidates in minutes. 

Easy Integration with ATS and CRM Systems

Most established organizations have applicant tracking systems or customer relationship management systems. A candidate sourcing tool such as Leoforce Quantum that offers seamless integration with existing tools makes it easier to adopt this new technology. Knowing that it won’t require massive changes and lift to implement makes using a new tool much more accessible.

Built-In Diversity Inclusion

With traditional hiring methods, implicit bias is often present, negatively impacting your ability to bring in diverse candidates at all levels. One of the biggest perks of AI is that it can put diversity and inclusion at the forefront of your hiring process, removing the possibility that unintended bias will lead to a lack of diversity in your organization.

Customizable Details

Every hiring process is different, and every organization is different. With the ability to customize the candidate sourcing process, you can be certain that the tools you use to source candidates will fit your needs.

Smart Shortlisting

Finding a list of potential candidates is one thing. Narrowing it down to quality candidates is another. Smart shortlisting is a feature of some candidate sourcing tools that takes the screening process one step further, sifting through candidate details to find a small list of the candidates most likely to succeed in the hiring process.

Frequently Asked Questions

What are Candidate Sourcing Techniques?

Traditional candidate sourcing techniques can range from scouring job boards, posting advertisements, attending job fairs, and more. Often, traditional methods require a lot of time and energy, without guaranteeing success. By switching to AI recruiting methods and candidate sourcing tools, you can spend more time curating the hiring experience for each candidate.

What’s the Difference Between Candidate Sourcing and Screening?

Candidate sourcing is the process of actively searching for and qualifying job candidates who haven’t applied to an open role. You might do this by collecting names and contact information, asking for resumes, and building relationships with potential hires.

Candidate screening happens after candidate sourcing. Once a list of candidates has been made through sourcing efforts, screening narrows down the applicant pool by taking a closer look at the candidate’s resume and other details.

Why Leoforce Quantum is the Tool You Need

Leoforce Quantum is the answer to your candidate sourcing woes. With best-in-class technology and a thoughtful design, it adds to the sourcing process without requiring too much lift. Seamlessly integrating with the systems you already have, Leoforce Quantum uses AI recruiting technologies to consider hiring attributes that similar tools often ignore. 

The tool offers more than artificial intelligence. With artificial intuition, Leoforce Quantum does the following:

• Sifts through internal and external job boards
• Sources highly qualified candidates
• Considers diversity goals throughout the process
• Makes communicating with candidates easier than ever

Want to Make Candidate Sourcing a Breeze?

Candidate sourcing doesn’t have to be a long, painful process. As a recruiter, you have so much value to offer your organization, but your value is lost when you spend days sifting through resumes – many of which are often unqualified. 

By intelligently automating candidate sourcing, your team can focus on creating a seamless hiring experience, reducing turnover, and understanding what employees are truly seeking when they join your organization.

References:

• https://www.gallup.com/workplace/247391/fixable-problem-costs-businesses-trillion.aspx
• https://builtin.com/employee-turnover-statistics

The post Candidate Sourcing Tools That Suit Your Organization appeared first on Leoforce.