Bridging the Skills Gap: How Recruitment Agencies Identify and Develop Talent
Recruitment is often daunting, especially if you don’t know how it works. It’s not as simple as posting a job ad on your website and waiting for applications to pour in. It involves thorough marketing, screening, and vetting processes. It also requires a significant amount of time and money to accomplish. After all, you want to hire the best talent there is in Canada.
Fortunately, this is where recruitment or employment agencies in Canada come into play. They can handle all your staffing needs—from finding talents through various networks to preparing them for their new roles. They can also free your human resources team from their other responsibilities—such as employee relations, compensation and benefits, and performance management.
If you plan to build or expand your workforce with talents in and outside of Canada, it’s worth working with a recruitment or employment agency.
How a Recruitment Agency can Help with Talent Acquisition
A recruitment agency can support your hiring and onboarding efforts in the following ways:
1. Aggressive marketing In today’s competitive job market, there are more jobs available than qualified candidates to fill them. For this reason, recruitment agencies use aggressive marketing strategies to proactively find and develop talent for their clients.
Here are some examples of marketing strategies that recruitment agencies use to identify and develop talent.
• Content marketing Recruitment agencies create and publish content—such as blogs, infographics, videos, and e-books—that is relevant to their target audience. These types of content attract and engage potential candidates.
• Social media marketing With nearly 5 billion social media users worldwide, recruiters now use platforms such as LinkedIn and Facebook to connect with a wider pool of potential candidates and promote job vacancies. They also use social media to run targeted ads to reach specific audiences, streamlining the recruitment process.
• Search engine marketing (SEM) Studies show that 80% of job seekers find opportunities through searches, job boards, and company websites. This finding proves the importance of SEM, a digital marketing strategy that uses organic and paid organic methods to boost a brand’s ranking on search engineer result pages (SERPs).
In recruitment, SEM can help agencies and companies target job seekers searching for specific jobs and information. It also allows agencies to help job seekers look for employers with vacancies.
• Event marketing Recruitment agencies attend industry events and conferences to meet potential candidates. They can also host their own events, such as job fairs and career workshops, to network and build relationships with job seekers.
2. Advanced screening tools Talent acquisition has become a competitive battlefield for many companies, with modern technologies helping them attract and screen candidates faster. Here are some advanced screening tools that assist recruitment agencies with their roles.
• Chatbots Chatbots are computer programs that can simulate conversations with humans. Recruitment agencies use them to automate the screening process. For instance, they can program a chatbot to ask candidates basic questions about their skills and experience, and to collect their contact information.
• Recruitment marketing automation This technology helps companies and recruitment agencies to automate their marketing campaigns—including tasks such as sourcing candidates, screening resumes, and sending out job applications. It helps save time and money and improves the efficiency of recruitment processes.
• Mobile recruitment In 2021, 67% of job seekers sent applications through their mobile devices—an increase from 51% two years prior. This finding highlights the importance of mobile recruitment, which involves optimizing job ads, applications, interviews, and assessments for mobile.
It makes it easier for candidates to apply for jobs and for businesses to screen and interview candidates.
• Virtual reality VR allows users to experience a simulated environment or situation, such as a job task or a virtual tour of a workplace. This technology helps candidates get a better understanding of a job and a company before they apply. It also helps recruiters improve the candidate experience, boosting their client’s employer branding.
• Video interviews As more job seekers opt for remote work arrangements, video interviews have become the norm today. Recruiters can now interview candidates via video conferencing tools like Zoom, Skype, and Zoho.
Not only do they save businesses time and money, but also help them screen candidates from all over the world and fill recruitment gaps quickly.
3. Mentoring and career coaching In some cases, recruitment agencies go the extra mile and provide mentoring and career coaching services to prepare candidates for suitable jobs. They can match employees with mentors who can guide and support them in developing their skills and knowledge, setting and achieving career goals, and navigating the workplace.
For example, a recruitment agency might match a new software engineer with a more experienced person who can teach them on the job. The mentor can help the new engineer learn about the company’s codebase, best practices, and how to debug and fix problems. The mentor can also help the engineer prepare for promotions.
Recruitment agencies can also provide career coaching to their employees to help them identify their career goals, develop a plan to achieve those goals, and market themselves to potential employers.
4. Job readiness training support Based on their client’s requirements, recruitment agencies look for candidates who are motivated, have a strong work ethic, and are eager to learn. They also look for candidates who have some relevant skills and experience, but who need additional training to be successful in a particular role.
For example, a recruitment agency might identify a candidate who is unemployed but has a strong desire to work in the tech industry. They can provide the candidate with job readiness training support in areas such as computer skills, resume writing and interviewing skills.
They can also host job readiness workshops for their candidates on topics such as resume writing, interviewing skills, and networking. Lastly, they can offer career counseling to help candidates identify their career goals and develop a plan to achieve them. These additional services serve as extensions of human resource management, alleviating their client’s in-house human resources team from employee relations tasks.
5. A personal touch Recruitment agencies are more than just professionals you hire to fill your job vacancies; they’re HR business partners that can propel you to success. They usually take the time to understand the specific needs of their clients. This includes understanding the company culture, the role’s responsibilities, and the role’s required skills and experience to better identify and develop quality talents.
Since they’re dedicated to the recruitment process, they also have more time to build relationships with candidates. This way, they can better understand the candidate’s skills, experience, and personality. It can also help recruitment agencies better match candidates with roles and develop them for future opportunities.
Find the Right HR Business Partner Today
Staffhouse International Resources is dedicated to helping employers like you build a skilled workforce of Filipino professionals. With our vast network and years of recruitment experience in recruitment, we can fill your job vacancies with quality talentin no time.
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