Having kicked off our newsletter covering topics such as tackling the great resignation, tips on how to level up your employer brand, tips to minimise turnover and, most recently, minimising turnover this year, this is the fifth instalment of the Lotus People newsletter, where we guide you on creating a market leading talent strategy for 2022.

Greg Savage, recruitment industry veteran wrote yesterday about how last week was strangely tough in recruitment. We couldn’t agree more – we are seeing more and more challenges daily in our recruitment processes; candidate shortages are real and SO MANY BUSINESSES ARE HIRING! Every company we speak to (ourselves included) would hire today if the right people appeared.

As the year starts, January saw the most jobs on SEEK in a month in it’s 25 year history – in January! Usually one of the quietest months of the year for job board advertising. Job ads are up 33% on January 2019 and are growing at a rate of 4.9% month on month.



In summary, the market is HOT! In building an airtight talent strategy for 2022, the key focus for any business is naturally going to be around nailing recruitment. Reviewing, refreshing, tracking and tweaking your recruitment process regularly this year is going to be essential, if you want to grow. Talent acquisition candidates are our most in-demand candidates right now, with salaries soaring, but this is essential information for everyone involved in recruitment processes.

Running a smooth, time sensitive and thorough recruitment experience, with candidate experience at the centre of that process, will allow you to put the best foot forward when it comes to hiring top talent.

We work with some of the best brands in Australia and we see what works and what doesn’t. We spend every day consulting with businesses and those who do best are the ones who make the changes and tweak their processes to align with this current market.

For me, it’s most definitely a challenge to attempt to condense over eleven years of agency recruitment experience into a short “how to” post but with word count limitations in mind, here are my absolute top tips!

How? 

1. Humanise and structure the recruitment process to ensure it is consistent with every hire – put a plan in place. Ours is three stages, every time. Overview meeting, functional interview and cultural meeting. All of our candidates that we hire internally for our team have the same experience and we can easily benchmark candidates this way.
2. Conduct a candidate journey audit to understand the different touch points throughout an application process and decide what to automate and what to personalise – use email templates, get back to people, figure out when people touch your brand and impress them. In this market, you can’t be the company who candidates don’t have a good experience with or you will struggle massively to hire now and in future.
3. Create accountability internally around candidate experience by providing training and setting service level expectations with those involved in recruitment – drive this from the top. Treat your candidates as you would your customers. Do not allow this to be the administration “too hard task” that slips during reactive/ busy periods.
4. Coach hiring managers and leaders on interviewing techniques and how to sell the company culture/ role detail – this is not happening enough! Candidates have multiple processes and they want this information. Know your stuff, know your EVP, sell your culture and clearly outline progression and development pathways at interview stage.
5. Understand that candidates are interviewing you as much as you are them – as above, this is as true as it ever has been.
6. Communicate with candidates – keep them informed and provide timely feedback – lean on automation here too. Every business can improve here. End of day text updates, bulk email notifications to everyone in process, calls to share that the update is no update. This is crucial and will set you apart because the bar is still fairly low across the board.
7. Partner with recruitment agencies who can demonstrate their commitment to candidate experience and who you know will represent you well in the market – I am biased, of course, but in my view this is essential. Businesses don’t find out enough about their agency partners – how are they selling your brand in the market, how do they treat their candidates, how do they treat their team, where are you in their list of priorities, what are their metrics and fill rates. Find this out!
8. Do not fight agencies down on fees – we currently have a significant supply and demand issue in the employment market. Understanding the value that agencies can offer and the importance of the work they do, and paying them accordingly, will see you thrive in this market. We are working at full non-discounted fees with a select few incredible businesses who we are SO excited to partner with and feel so passionately about. That produces excellent results and is a win/win for everyone involved.
9. Over-communicate from offer stage through to acceptance, assisting and guiding and coaching through counter offers and resignations. Again, Greg Savage wrote an article outlining NINETEEN steps that should be taken between offer and start date – and I fully agree with him! This is such a precarious stage and I have heard countless stories of businesses being let down, but it can be preventable with communication.
10. Create an employee referral program and promote regularly internally – again, this is not done enough. Your people know people. Your candidates know more candidates. Ask, refer, reward, promote.
11. Be human! Finally, and perhaps the most important point, – be human! We are privileged enough to be working with people through times of change. They trust us as recruiters, as leaders, as talent acquisition consultants to be honest, transparent and kind in how we work with them in navigating their career choices. This one will pay dividends when it comes to your employer brand in market, future candidate pipeline and general reputation, and it should be the easiest one!