The first step to finding a great candidate is successfully marketing your open positions.
As the higher education employment market becomes increasingly competitive, recruitment marketing is more important than ever. Read on for ten tips to market your open faculty and staff positions.
1. Refine Your Job Descriptions
A job description is an important sneak peek into your institutional culture for an applicant. Things move fast in the complex hiring world of HigherEd, and HR managers might be tempted to recycle old job descriptions or templates for recently vacated roles. This tactic can lead to outdated or overly general postings that actually discourage candidates from reaching out. A good job description is unique to a position and should evolve over time. Revisiting job descriptions each time you hire is an important part of hiring for the reality of the job today. If you post a role as it was the last time you hired, you might not hire the right candidate for the job as it has evolved, and there may be a disconnect between the new hire’s expectations based on the job description and what they’re really walking into. In addition, your job descriptions shouldn’t be bogged down in tired language, but should act as a selling point for your institution and showcase your workplace culture.
PeopleAdmin’s Position Management helps you build a living library of positions, so you always have a current, approved job descriptions for open positions, while also ensuring that your hiring processes remain compliant and consistent.
2. Make Expectations and Benefits Clear
Remote working was the norm for many in 2020 and 2021. Today, 54% of Americans want to keep working mostly remotely, and 70% want to have the option to work remotely. This shift is important to consider when advertising for open positions. Job seekers want to understand what their daily lives will look like if they join your institution, and you can help ensure a good match between applicants and your institution by making your policies and expectations clear in a job description. Be up front about whether the role is hybrid, in-person, or remote, and note the hours and flexibility of the position.
Whether or not you can offer your employees a remote work option, be sure to note the other benefits offered by your institution. From childcare to on-campus benefits, from health care to mental health support programs, share your benefits up front in order to attract talent and compete with the corporate world.
3. Expand Your Reach
While position descriptions can deter or entice a candidate to apply, there is still the important step of getting your job posting out there for candidates to see. If a qualified job seeker never sees an available position, your team is missing out on talent! There are many creative ways to increase your candidate pool and encourage a diverse group of potential employees to apply. PeopleAdmin makes cross-posting jobs simple and fast by connecting directly with job boards like HigherEd Jobs, Inside Higher Ed Careers, SparkHire, and more. Spread the word quickly by sharing your open roles widely.
4. Don’t Forget About Internal Candidates!
Sometimes, the best candidate for a role is someone who is already part of your institution. Terms like “upskilling” and “reskilling” have entered conversations about employee retention and hiring on a reduced budget. When hiring for open roles, consider a current employee who is already comfortable with the institutions culture and has positive relationships with the team, even if they’re missing a few of the requirements. The employee might seize the opportunity for professional development and career growth, and you’ll save time and money on marketing, interviewing, and onboarding.
5. Create a Referral Program
Research shows that hires referred by current employees tend to perform better and stay longer than other new hires. Your current faculty and staff likely have a network of former colleagues or professional counterparts at other institutions who are well-qualified for your open roles. These networks might not be actively looking for a new role, but would be interested if presented with the opportunity; employee referrals are a great way to snag these quality candidates before they’re interviewing broadly. Referral programs are a great way to encourage your employees to actively search out people who might be a fit for the institution. One survey showed that 40% of respondents were motivated by a monetary reward to refer a candidate, and 68% said that they wanted to help their organization. Whether you are able to offer a monetary bonus or another kind of perk or demonstration of gratitude, your team should encourage and simplify the referral process.
In addition, if undertaken thoughtfully, employee referrals can increase the diversity of your candidate pool. For instance, if you’re hoping to hire more women into STEM roles, tap the networks of your female faculty and interview their peers and mentees as potential candidates.
6. Build Your Candidate Pool
Sometimes a hiring committee might end up with two high-quality candidates, both of whom are a fit for the role—but only one can be hired. Other times, a committee might have a candidate who seems like a great culture fit but is missing one critical skillset. Don’t lose track of these great job-seekers who don’t quite make the grade for one open position. They’ve already gone through the application process and expressed interest in your institution, so why not revisit these candidates for future positions? PeopleAdmin’s Applicant Tracking System can help you maintain a pipeline of past candidates with a tagging system, so your team has notes of well-qualified applicants they might want to invite to apply for a new role.
7. Embrace Social Media
Social media platforms like Facebook and LinkedIn have billions of users interacting with their pages each day. Keeping your institution active on these platforms can have huge benefits, and posting open roles is a great way to engage followers and be discovered by passive job seekers who might not be browsing job boards. Using social media to advertise jobs can decrease your recruiting costs and shorten your time to hire. Some platforms also allow you to target certain groups who would be especially good candidates for your open position. LinkedIn, for instance, has groups for different sectors and different job types. PeopleAdmin makes leveraging social media simple with our direct connections to platforms like LinkedIn, Twitter, and Facebook, allowing you to increase your candidate pool quickly and easily.
8. Go Mobile
More candidates than ever are searching and applying for jobs on mobile devices. Job-seekers today expect more communication and mobile access to information, both in the recruiting process and once they’re hired. A streamlined, mobile accessible process makes your institution look tech-savvy and forward-thinking, encouraging quality candidates to apply. Create a mobile-friendly applicant portal with PeopleAdmin.
9. Leverage AI
Artificial intelligence is a great way to increase the efficiency of your recruiting processes and take the burden of paperwork and scheduling off your HR staff and hiring committees. PeopleAdmin’s partnership with Paradox makes use of AI to manage scheduling of screenings and interviews, answer candidate questions, and engage applicants via text throughout the application process. In addition, candidates are more likely to pass on applying or continuing with the application if the recruiting process takes too long, or if the application itself is complex or outdated. With Paradox and PeopleAdmin, candidates will get into the interview process faster, be more engaged, and be less likely to drop out of the application process, all without adding more to your team’s plate.
10. Make Use of Your Data
One final tip for the best recruitment marketing strategy: don’t get stuck in your ways. Something that works for one institution might not necessarily work for yours, and a strategy that worked for your institution last year might not be the best path today. Your team should be ready and willing to refine and hone your recruiting processes and strategies as you determine what is driving success and engagement. PeopleAdmin’s analytics give insights throughout the recruitment journey across a variety of metrics, allowing you to measure what’s working and adjust what isn’t.