The competition to attract high-quality applicants for any open role has become incredibly difficult. The Great Resignation has limited the amount of qualified applicants coming your way, and competition for passive candidates has become even more intense. Still, that doesn’t mean you can’t attract top talent.
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How to Get More Quality Applications for Your Job Ads
While your candidate pool may be getting smaller, you can still attract high-quality applicants to apply to your open positions.
Here are 6 ways to increase opt-ins for your roles and opportunities.
1. Test Your Applicant Process
Before updating your hiring policies, you need to understand what’s stopping quality candidates from reaching the finish line. The most pressing issues are often found in the application process, as applicant tracking systems (ATS) often disqualify quality talent for bizarre reasons.
For example, an ATS may give a candidate a low suitability score because they used a synonym or a keyword, or a plural. Going through this process yourself can help you identify these hiccups. Evaluation tools like JobSage and other review sites can examine your applicant process for gaps and help you fix blindspots.
2. Don’t Frustrate Applicants
While testing the application process, ask yourself how you’re feeling. If you’re frustrated, it’s likely that your candidates are frustrated, too. If you’re using software to track the applicant process, study where your applicants stop filling out the application and adjust these areas.
A word of advice: don’t ask applicants to write out their resumes if they’ve already uploaded a file. Not only does it waste their time, but it also makes them think you’re wholly inefficient.
3. Review Your Company Brand
An employer brand is the market’s perception of a company or an employer. A brand also describes your promise (employee value proposition) to employees in exchange for their talents, skills, contacts, and experience. Corporate brand management is integral for talent acquisition.
Like your applicant process, you need to audit your brand to understand its shortfalls. You also have to consider what modern employees want from employers, such as diversity, job security, and work-life balance. Then, discuss how you’ll promote your brand through content and ads.
4. Streamline Your Applications
If your application takes longer than 5 minutes to complete, doesn’t include the option to add video, or isn’t mobile friendly, you’re alienating the majority of your applicants. However, paying attention to these factors can increase your job’s advertisement conversion rate by 365%.
Fortunately, there are plenty of ways to streamline the application process. A mobile-optimized job ad will capture mobile users without frustrating them, and optional video resumes allow candidates to express themselves. Removing unnecessary application fields is also an option.
5. Create Specific Job Postings
Some candidates will apply for any job in their field, regardless if they’re a great match. But a great ATS software will remove those applicants from the running. At the same time, you may attract high-quality applicants but not the right employees for your specific job posting.
You can attract suitable applicants by writing great job descriptions. For example, if you need a sales candidate to increase sales by 50%, state that fact in your job post to find relevant talent.
6. Integrate With Job Websites
There’s nothing wrong with adding your job postings to job websites, but candidates have to sign up to these sites before they can apply. This process can increase the time it takes to fill out an application form, making it more likely candidates will drop off before they’re completed.
To avoid this, integrate with job boards with the help of a CRM. By doing this, candidates only need to fill out one form to register with the website and apply for your job. Make sure you still write a great job description on the website, as that will increase quality applicant opt-ins.
