8 innovative recruiting methods used by the world’s best recruiting teams

It's no secret that the best companies and teams are always looking for new talent. But what separates the top performers from the rest of the pack when it comes to finding top talent? The answer is innovative recruitment methods. In order to find and hire the best talent, top-performing recruiting teams use a variety of innovative methods. 

Here at HiPeople we work with the best TA and recruiting teams across the globe to help them hire the best talent faster. Every day we learn about today’s challenges of finding the best candidates to fill the open positions. And, every day we learn how top-performing recruiters stand out from the crowd.

After hundreds of conversations we identified common patterns that best-in-class recruiters share. Needless to say, they are an amazing benchmark for every aspirational recruiter. What recruiting practices might help you to turn your TA organization into a top-performing team? Following we have compiled a list of 8 innovative recruiting methods.

In today's business climate, top-performing teams are those that can recruit the best talent. To find this talent, recruitment teams need to get creative with their recruiting methods. The following are eight innovative recruitment methods that top-performing recruitment teams use to hire top talent.

Use data & data-driven recruitment methods

The best way to hire and retain great employees is to have a process in place that uses data and data-driven processes. Today, more and more companies leverage data to identify the talent that matches their requirements the best. Such data points include:

• Personality
• Cognitive ability
• Skills and capabilities
• Reference checks
• Background checks
• Candidate experience feedback
• Quality of Hire

Build your employer brand

It’s a competitive world out there. In order to attract and retain the best talent, employers need to invest in their employer brand. An employer brand is the perception of an organization by prospective employees based on what they see, hear, or read about it. While many companies have invested in defining the employer brand for internal use, it is not until recently that companies have started investing in their employer brand externally. With the ultimate goal of being an employer of choice. Key initiatives to increase visibility and build your employer brand are:

• Strong social media presence
• Careers page with a focus on the employee experience
• Employees becoming advocates of the company
• Proving a great candidate experience

Pre-employment tests

The mantra of today is to hire the right people. And that’s why pre-employment tests play a pivotal role. Such tests are not only effective but also economical in nature. A good test can help you weed out candidates who don’t match your requirements and save a lot of time for everyone. Beyond that, they help to remove biases from hiring decisions. Pre-employment tests are widely used to assess candidates' knowledge and skills, but also their personality traits. They are a great way to evaluate how an applicant will fit into your organization, and how they will respond to the specific job you have open. 

Don’t overlook DE&I

It's no secret that a more diverse and inclusive workforce is good for business. Not only does it make companies more innovative and creative, but it also helps them better understand and serve their customers. However, creating a more diverse and inclusive workforce can be a challenge, especially when it comes to recruiting. Organizations that have strong recruiting efforts on DEI use the following recruitment methods:

• Blind candidate evaluations
• Diverse career pages
• Focus on inclusive language
• Have diverse hiring teams
• Promote DEI in their overall company culture

Use HR Tech tools

As the world of work continues to change and evolve, so too does the technology and tools that support it. HR professionals have always been at the forefront of adopting and leveraging new technologies to help drive better business outcomes. In recent years, we've seen a dramatic increase in the number of HR tools and technologies available to help organizations manage their workforce more effectively. The key pieces of technology top-performing recruiting teams use are:

• Applicant tracking system (ATS)
• Candidate assessment solution
• Reference check automation platform
• Background check solution
• Candidate experience feedback tools
• Quality of Hire Analytics solution

Pay attention to candidate experience

Candidate experience matters. It's important to your business for a variety of reasons. First, it impacts your ability to attract and retain top talent. Second, it impacts your employer brand. And third, it impacts your bottom line. Top-performing recruiting teams constantly measure, benchmark, and analyze their candidate experience to identify room for improvement. This could e.g. be:

• Interaction and communication witht the candidate
• Expectation management
• Transparent process
• Appropriate use of the technology in the process
• Reasonable effort that was required

Automated processes

​​If you're like most recruiters, you're always looking for ways to streamline your process and make your life a little easier. Well, good news - there are plenty of ways to do just that with automation! 

• Multi-posting of vacant jobs
• Personality assessments
• Hard skill assessments
• Cognitive ability assessments
• Reference checks
• Background checks
• Candidate experience feedback
• Quality of Hire Analytics

Build a talent pool

A talent pool is a group of potential employees that a company can hire from. It is important for businesses to have a talent pool because it allows them to be prepared for future growth and it helps to ensure that they have a qualified workforce. Talent pools can include candidates from different sources, e.g.:

• Actively sourced candidates
• Candidates you talked to before but didn’t proceed with
• Candidates from career fairs
• Employee referrals

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Innovative recruitment methods are constantly evolving to keep up with the ever-changing landscape of the workforce. As the competition for top talent intensifies, companies are continually looking for new ways to attract the best candidates. A strong combination of different types of innovative recruitment methods enable teams to hire the best candidates, lead to more successful hires, and increase the overall Quality of Hire.