Culture and AI - A Success in Recruiting

Do you want to attract the highest quality professionals to your company? If so, you're well aware that comprehensive outreach is critical to successful recruiting. However, have you considered why culture plays a key role and how technology upskilling can help you achieve this goal?

A Key Goal: Finding and Retaining Talent

The job market is thriving, and companies must exert greater effort than ever before to find the best talent. However, simply finding them isn't sufficient - retaining them for the long term is equally crucial. Shockingly, statistics reveal that four out of five employees intend to change jobs within the next year. To ensure long-term success, it is imperative to keep staff turnover under control, and this can only be achieved with the right employees. Consequently, companies must adopt a proactive approach.

Recruiting in the Numbers Check

Let's consider a hypothetical company called ZukunftTech, which aims to hire a new sales manager. The company utilizes traditional recruitment channels like job advertisements and its career site to attract potential applicants. Through these efforts, ZukunftTech manages to reach a total of 15,000 potential candidates, resulting in 200 applications. At first glance, this may seem promising, right?

However, let's delve deeper into the numbers: Out of the 200 applications received, only 20 candidates, accounting for a mere 10%, are invited for an interview. From this already reduced pool, ZukunftTech must make their hiring decision. Even if ZukunftTech successfully fills the vacancy in this scenario, it's important to acknowledge that the process itself is both time-consuming and costly. In Germany, the average cost of unfilled positions is approximately 29,000 euros, and the average time-to-hire is 121 days.

Rethinking Recruiting

So, what can we do to establish effective outreach and target the right talent?

1. Farewell to Job Ads

Investing solely in job ads for short-term recruiting is no longer effective. Instead, we need to gain a comprehensive understanding of the skills and attributes that make up talented individuals to select the appropriate channels. Merely posting a job ad on generic portals and waiting for applications is no longer sufficient. Our focus should shift towards evaluating specific skills and personality traits rather than solely relying on degrees. Possessing a specific degree alone does not guarantee success or performance. Instead, we should emphasize the particular skills and character traits required for the job. This approach ensures that we attract the right talent and achieve long-term success.

2. Pay Attention to Values and Corporate Culture

It's crucial to recognize that an inappropriate corporate culture is increasingly leading to terminations. This should serve as a wake-up call for us. After all, the most significant factors contributing to job satisfaction are cultural, including appreciation, leadership, and personal development. Thus, corporate culture becomes a critical differentiator. Companies should take this insight seriously, as corporate culture is a decisive criterion for talent in determining whether an employer is attractive or not. To convey an authentic image of the corporate culture, companies should regularly analyze their internal culture and actively involve their employees in the process.

3. Embrace Employer Branding

Investing in building your employer brand over the long term is not only a worthwhile investment but also crucial. It's important to understand that employer brand marketing differs from traditional product marketing. We're talking about targeting different audiences and employing distinct approaches. The most innovative companies have already integrated marketing experts into their HR teams who possess a deep understanding of which channels are best suited to strengthen the employer brand. Don't underestimate the power of social media platforms! They offer a quick route to visibility. However, it's essential to focus on generating reach through quality content, rather than simply accumulating followers (distinguishing between social graph and interest graph networks). Moreover, your content can be optimized for SEO to attract new recruits. Always keep your target audience in mind and strive to meet their needs.

4. Harness the Power of AI in Recruiting

The utilization of intelligent technologies allows us to identify suitable candidates beyond the limitations of traditional job portals. Leveraging these algorithms presents new opportunities to discover talent. For instance, we can leverage social networks to identify individuals who may not be actively seeking new employment but express values aligned with our organization on social media platforms.

Let's revisit our example company, ZukunftTech. By prioritizing values and company culture, we could achieve a significantly broader reach (>5 million impressions). AI-powered pre-qualification would generate approximately 12 applicants, with six proceeding through the application process, ultimately leading to a successful candidate for ZukunftTech. This would result in only around 50 percent of the hiring costs being incurred and a significant reduction in time-to-hire.

With Empion, we have developed an AI-based RoboAdvisor that serves as an automated test headhunting tool, supporting your recruiting efforts. Empion quantifies your company's values and conducts targeted searches for potential applicants who are a good fit for your organization.

The Tried and True Lasts the Longest? Not in Recruiting

In order to attract top talent to your company, it is crucial to have a robust outreach strategy and efficient pre-qualification methods in recruiting. Traditional approaches such as job ads are no longer as effective as they used to be. Therefore, it is necessary to reconsider our recruiting methods. By implementing the best practices mentioned above, particularly leveraging the power of AI, you can greatly enhance the efficiency of your recruiting process and successfully attract the ideal talent for your company. Remember, staying innovative and adaptive in recruiting is key to securing long-term success in talent acquisition.