In decades past and in years characterized by high unemployment rates, recruiters and employers held most of the power. Individuals eager to earn a living felt lucky to have a job or be offered one. Employers, generally speaking, had little motivation to exert the time and financial resources to take steps to ensure that candidates and employees had positive workplace experiences. This is no longer the case.
One of the most important hiring trends for 2017, as noted in an article in Forbes, is that recruiters and employers will take steps to ensure that candidates and employees stand to gain more than just a paycheck once they join a company. Recruiters and employers realize that the economy is relatively strong, and that candidates and employees have options. Younger generations value quality of life as much as job security. Improving candidate and employee experiences is a critical step toward achieving a healthy workplace environment and employee loyalty.
Social Media Drives Marketing Inward
Marketing has always been critical to attracting and retaining customers. In 2017, human resources personnel will also market to candidates and employees. What’s driving this paradigm shift? Businesses cannot operate without employees. Thanks to social media and websites like Glassdoor, employees (and job applicants) can easily share their experiences – good and bad. According to an article on WorkplaceTrends, last year more than 60% of job seekers noted having a bad experience when looking for work. Nearly 75% of those disgruntled applicants shared their bad experiences online. Whether they simply wanted to vent or wanted to dissuade job seekers from specific companies is unknown. What is undeniable, though, is that employers who are badmouthed online will lose out on qualified candidates.
Virgin Media: Leading the Pack in Improving the Candidate Experience
Richard Branson is largely a household name. When his company, Virgin Media, has a job opening it receives thousands of inquiries. Even when it doesn’t have a specific opening, it receives thousands of unsolicited applications. Most applicants will not be hired. However, Branson has devised a brilliant strategy for turning disappointment into positivity. The company strives to make candidates feel at ease, valued, heard, and optimistic about future opportunities with the company. What goes hand-in-hand with this positivity is where the brilliance comes in. Virgin knows many applicants aren’t customers. It rewards applicants for their interest in the company with commercial offers and rewards that will turn them into customers. That’s a true marketing win-win! That’s thinking outside the box, which is at the heart of recruiting trends for 2017.
About World Wide
For the last 50 years, World Wide Specialty Programs has dedicated itself to providing the optimal products and solutions for the staffing industry. As the only insurance firm to be an ASA commercial liability partner, we are committed to that partnership and committed to using our knowledge of the industry to provide staffing firms with the best possible coverage. For more information about Staffing Professional Liability Insurance or any other coverage we have available to protect your staffing business, give us a call at 877-256-0468 to speak with one of our representatives.