At this point in time, it’s unclear when things will be fully “normal†again. The COVID-19 vaccine got people back in the office, but the Delta variant has made things uncertain again. Regardless, most businesses are in a much better place now than they were a year ago, which means they can afford to bring on new talent. In fact, a report from iHire shows that 86.2% of companies are hiringOpens a new window , a 13.4% increase from last year.
The only problem is, it might not be as easy as it seems to find the right people.
The same survey also revealed that 77% expect a shortage of qualified applicants in the coming year. People are certainly out there willing to work, but employers aren’t convinced they can find the right people for the job. But all this could be alleviated if they utilize data properly.
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Proper data utilization seems to be a big issue in many workplaces, as evidenced by the fact that only 21% of HR leadersOpens a new window believe their organizations use talent data effectively to inform business decisions. If that number were higher, perhaps businesses would be more confident in their ability to find the right hires. If they want to avoid a potential applicant shortage, they need to know the best ways to use data. Here are a few strategies:
1. Matching up With Top Performers
When looking to hire someone, a great thing to do is compare each candidate to the top performers at one’s business. What have they done at their work that matches what the top performers at your company do as well? What similar skills do they have? Obviously, this will be different for each company, but data is the perfect way to measure it. Among the things data can pick out are employee tenure, employee engagement at 6-12 months, and performance ratings.
Once a business does this, they can then also use the data going forward, emphasizing certain skills or experience in future job postings, and the more people join the company, the more data points they get.
2. Finding Certain Niche Candidates
Data can also help filter candidates when looking for someone very specific to fill a role — for example, senior-level female talent — doing the work of sorting through applications that would take the HR department hours. This makes the preliminary part of the hiring process as painless and effective as possible.
Specific platforms can help accomplish this, such as Power To Fly, which connects female professionals with employment opportunities, and uses data to reach candidates in remote locations, which is certainly important nowadays. By leveraging high-quality data sources through talent acquisition platforms like these, HR teams can widen the field of candidates and cast a bigger net.
3. Filtering the Qualified Candidates
In a similar vein, data can filter out the qualified candidates from the unqualified based on the specific requirements in the job posting. Whether it’s years of experience, industries worked in, or proximity to the office (if location is still important for your company post-COVID-19), data can easily help identify which applicants should move forward.
An applicant tracking system (ATS) is the perfect system to utilize data this way. ATS scans applications for words that match the job posting, which is done faster than a pair of human eyes. It’s much easier to have a list of resumes most tailored to the job description than to manually go through each and every application to see which ones match the most.
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Using Data the Whole Way Through
Data can also help once candidates are selected for an interview, verifying the information they claim during the interview process, and keeping track of them during the interview process. Data is there to help companies select the best applicants, and they shouldn’t abandon it once they select the best resumes.
In the end, it’s not that there’s a shortage of talent; it’s that businesses don’t have the right tools to identify the right people who are out there. Using data is an effective solution to hire the right people for the job and find candidates in an accessible, compliant, accurate way.
Having HR professionals manually sort through each application is a painstaking process that takes away from time that can be spent doing better things for their company. But using data frees up schedules to make time for higher-level planning. And companies shouldn’t abandon it once things go back to normal. Data is something that should be used for every new hire and integrated into more facets of your business.
How are you utilizing data to hire the right candidate during these testing times? Share with us on LinkedInOpens a new window , FacebookOpens a new window , and TwitterOpens a new window .