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Talent acquisition analytics and high demand skills

Software & Technology

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The emergence of talent acquisition analytics is putting powerful information in the hands of businesses. In fact, it’s proving transformational for recruitment teams. Recruitment teams today navigate a hiring landscape where engaging top talent is no easy feat. Adapting talent acquisition strategies to identify, attract, and engage highly skilled people is key. And it doesn’t have to feel insurmountable with the right know-how and insightful data to guide you.  

With this in mind, let’s explore the challenges of recruiting for highly competitive skills during times of ongoing market turbulence.  We’ll also explore how people analytics are levelling up the process, making it more streamlined, faster and informed.

Challenges of Recruiting for Highly Competitive Skills

Attracting and recruiting candidates with high demand skills is a daunting task at any time. Layer in the uncertainties of today’s economy and rapid shifts in the talent market, and the challenges are even greater. Companies must get smarter and more strategic about many of their processes. And hiring is no exception.  

Chance are you’re experiencing one or more of these most common difficulties in today’s hiring environment:

  • Limited talent pool – There’s often a scarcity of highly sought-after skills available when demand is at a peak, making it extra tough to source ideal candidates.
  • Intensified competition – The need to contend with stiff competition from rival companies vying for the same candidates is greater when you’re fishing in a shallow talent pool. What’s more, the heat is on to expedite the hiring process if you’re going to beat your competitors to it.
  • Cost constraints –Economic uncertainties can lead to tightened purse strings and limited resources for recruitment efforts. This often includes advertising, candidate sourcing, and assessment tools.

It can feel like something of a Catch 22 situation if you’re juggling:

  • Lean interest in your open positions or vacancies
  • Lean resources to direct at candidate sourcing
  • Lean investment to optimize your reach

But, ask yourself this. Are your all your efforts based on conjecture and guesswork? Are you doing what you can, but just hoping for the best? Do you understand what’s working and what’s not?

For this purpose, the importance of pulling out and leveraging talent acquisition metrics can’t be overstated. After all, if you can’t identify gaps, how can you take relevant measures to close them?

The Transcendent Role of Talent Acquisition Analytics

The sheer power of talent acquisition analytics lies in the ability to leverage data-driven insights to optimize the recruitment process. It can be especially impactful for finding and hooking those elusive in-demand candidates. For example:

Targeted Candidate Sourcing

Talent acquisition analytics equip you with data-driven sourcing strategies to tap into the most relevant talent pools. Per role, per department and per location! And even better still, it’s not the spreadsheet ninja exercise you’ve experienced before. Once you’re able to dive into the data around your current workforce and clarify influential factors like:

  • Where they came from
  • Which recruitment channels are most effective

You can make smarter, more informed decisions. “Data (analytics) shows you which recruitment channels are bringing you the best candidates, what characteristics your top candidates have in common, where you’re lacking in diversity, and so much more,” explained Shani Jay in her article for the AIHR, Talent Acquisition Analytics: Why You Need It & 5 Tips For Success.

And by analyzing sourcing channel effectiveness you can identify potential candidates with the desired skillsets, even if they’re not actively job-seeking right now. Channels such as your social media platforms, online communities, and wider professional networks are more fruitful.

“These metrics are powerful because they can help you make more informed and strategic hiring decisions which will ultimately result in better hires,” Jay concluded, adding, “A study confirms that 41% of candidates perform better in organizations that use analytics in their hiring process.”

Data-driven Problem-Solving

It’s not just the analytics that fix the problems, it’s the informed decisions you make with the information exposed by the analytics.

To give you an idea, a HireRoad client competes for highly in-demand skills in a fierce marketplace. But their problem didn’t seem to stem from any inability to attract the right talent. They noticed their new hire rates slumping, especially within a satisfactory time frame. Yet all the while, there was an increase in offers going out.

The problem was closing. Too many candidates progressed all the way to the final stages of the process, but ultimately turned down job offers.

Harnessing analytics, the team was able to take a closer look at what was going on by increasing the visibility into relevant data points. They did this by ‘slicing and dicing’ offer acceptance rates in the following connotations:

  • By division
  • By trend
  • By performance against target

Accessing information at a deeper level of granularity enabled them to identify what was causing them to lose ideal candidates at the final hurdle. In turn, they were empowered to adapt their recruitment process and approach, and to create a strategy to minimize and flag risks.

Cost Optimization

Talent acquisition analytics facilitate a bigger picture overview. So, you can identify the most value-rich sourcing channels and advertising platforms. In turn, you can then allocate your resources more efficiently and also maximize your budget after analyzing the ROI of different recruitment strategies.

Recruiting for highly competitive skills during uncertain times can be grueling. But talent acquisition analytics offer a game-changing solution, by leveraging data-driven insights and helping you overcome the above challenges, plus many more besides.

You see, having optimized recruitment strategies grounded in data analysis empowers you to make the best use of your resources and deliver a higher ROI. Isn’t that a double tick in the box most recruitment professionals are craving, for attracting highly skilled professionals and keeping them sticky amidst a erratic job market?

At HireRoad, our innovative talent analytics system is qualifying businesses to navigate the high demand job market more successfully, with previously imagined but untapped insights to inform and dictate recruitment strategies and proactivity.

So, why not get in touch for a free demo today? Because the best talent on the market won’t wait while you figure out ways to reel them in.