In a tight labour force market, sourcing candidates has become a real struggle, particularly for the health care and social assistance sector. Candidate numbers via online job boards are rapidly dwindling yet many organisations still favour these channels.

Not only are we seeing a huge reduction in active job applicants for care roles, but one might also question the quality of candidates still using these channels to get a job. The term “revolving door” comes to mind.

Benefits of Diversifying Recruitment Sources

Research suggests that diversifying recruitment sources can lead to better hiring outcomes, such as:

• A more diverse pool of candidates and thus
• More diverse hires
• A better company cultural fit
• Broader candidate reach
• Higher quality candidates
• With longer tenure

Some examples of recruitment sources are online job boards, agencies, employee referral, social media, community outreach, flyer drop, vocational institutions and migration programs.

The power of your employees

Employee referral programs have been found to be one of the most effective ways to find top-notch candidates. Research published in the Journal of Business and Psychology found that employee referral programs were the most effective recruitment source for finding candidates who were a good fit for the organisation. Additionally, research published in the Journal of Applied Psychology found that employees who were referred by someone they knew were more likely to stay, resulting in lower turnover rates and greater retention. As an added bonus, the referring employee also had longer tenure!

Moreover, employee referral programs have been found to be cost-effective. A study published in the Journal of Labour Economics found that employee referral programs had a lower cost per hire compared to other recruitment sources. Monetary referral rewards also go directly back to employees and thus become an investment, instead of an external spend.

Employee referral is also an ongoing source of new staff, as for each new hire, organisations can tap into a whole new, often local, network. It’s the low-hanging fruit of recruitment sourcing, yet completely under-utilised in many organisations.

How to turn referral from a drip to a drizzle

“It’s too cumbersome to manage!” is a phrase often uttered when talking about employee referral programs. And it is indeed, when using a spreadsheet. So 20th century. There are modern solutions that streamline the referral process and make it fun and rewarding for employees, either integrated in a recruitment system or via a dedicated app. Organisations using an employee referral app, such as Care Friends in Australia and the UK, are creating a culture of referring and get up to 30% of new hires via this high-quality source. On average, these referrals have tenure more than double that of staff sourced via other channels, making referral an important source to add to your mix.

Questions to ask yourself now

To overcome the challenges of a tight labour market by diversifying recruitment sources, organisations need to ask themselves a few important questions: What is the breakdown of our current recruitment sources, the number of hires and retention by source? Are we overly reliant on a single recruitment source, and how can better leverage our existing employees to help us recruit?

If you are finding that you’re not yet getting more than 15% of new hires via referral, then you have at least one new recruitment source to tap into.

With nearly two decades of experience in Human Resources, Marleen Galligan is a seasoned professional with a diverse skill set that includes recruitment, change management, training, marketing and communication, EVP, and psychometric assessments. Leveraging her educational background in psychology, Marleen provides valuable guidance to clients through a range of services and tools, including their Employee Referral app, Care Friends, to help turbocharge the power of employee referral and their Psychometric Assessment tool, Care Advantage, to effectively screen candidates.

Sources

Seek.com.au

Breaugh, J. A. (2008). Employee referrals: A review. Journal of Human Resources, 43(2), 262-276.

Cable, D. M., & Turban, D. B. (2003). The value of organizational reputation in the recruitment context: A brand‐equity perspective. Journal of Applied Social Psychology, 33(11), 2244-2266.

Chua, R. Y., & Ingram, P. (2013). A tale of two cities: Competing logics and practice variation in the professionalizing of mutual funds. Academy of Management Journal, 56(1), 1-33.

Dineen, B. R., Noe, R. A., & Shaw, J. D. (2008). What leads to the referral of job candidates? An exploratory field study. Journal of Applied Psychology, 93(1), 50-59.

Holm, H., Eriksson, T., & Åkerman, N. (2018). Examining the effectiveness of employee referral programmes: A quasi-experiment. International Journal of Human Resource Management, 29(17), 2459-2478.

Martin, A., & Liao, H. (2016). Do birds of a feather flock, fly, and continue to fly together? The differential and evolving effects of attraction, selection, and attrition on personality-based within-organization homogeneity. Journal of Applied Psychology, 101(5), 679-696.

Rynes, S. L., & Cable, D. M. (2003). Recruitment research in the twenty-first century. Annual Review of Psychology, 54(1), 93-119.

Slaughter, J. E., & Zickar, M. J. (2006). Referral source and applicant reactions: A study of fairness perceptions and organizational attraction. Journal of Business and Psychology, 21(3), 313-328.

Turban, D. B., & Keon, T. L. (1993). Organizational attractiveness: An interactionist perspective. Journal of Applied Social Psychology, 23(22), 1858-1876.

www.carefriends.com.au

The post Why Online Job Boards are No Longer Enough: The Power of Employee Referral Programs appeared first on Recruitment Marketing.

Despite the country slowly returning to pre-COVID “normalcy” there are still huge workforce shortages in the healthcare and social assistance sector, particularly aged care – regardless of whether talent is needed in residential care settings or in regional/remote areas, there is a continued battle to fill shifts. 

In a sector that is already struggling financially, the pressure on recruitment teams and managers to fill vacancies is an ever-building crescendo. Reduced candidate numbers, no-shows to interviews and even no-shows on the first day on the job are increasing, leaving managers at their wits’ end. 

The need for speed

But with pressure comes risks. The need for speed to snap up any available care staff is a slippery slope to hasty hiring decisions. We’re seeing organisations using fewer reference checks, removing additional screening or going from one (video) interview straight into sending a contract. 

Although speed-to-hire is important, preventing hiring mistakes remains critical, as the cost of a hiring mistake is not only front-loaded but continues to ripple long after the bad hire has been dismissed.

Research finds that a bad hire can cost an employer between 15 – 21 per cent of that employee’s salary, with the extent of the impact depending on the industry and seniority of the role. They furthermore found that 61 per cent of employers have settled for a candidate that did not sufficiently match the job role, ultimately hindering growth and incurring additional costs to the organisation.

For a talent acquisition platform that can help you post jobs, manage candidates, and hire the right talent all in one place, click here to learn about Scout Talent’s service-enabled software.

Reasons to keep psychometric assessments

Psychometric assessments are becoming increasingly popular for frontline care roles because they effectively showcase a candidate’s soft skills, which can be more challenging to identify through a standard resume. One provider of psychometric assessments for the care sector, Care Advantage, has screened close to 200,000 Australian care applicants in the past seven years. 

However, they too have seen a change in how their assessments are being used and a push-back from managers who just want to get their shifts filled. Although it may be tempting to skip additional screening, there are compelling reasons why these types of assessments work:

• There are many different types of assessments that give insight into aspects of a person that are more difficult to uncover otherwise, such as personality style, risky attitudes to work, cognitive ability, level of emotional intelligence and more. 
• They can identify people with the right fit for a job without necessarily having relevant experience. Perfect for hiring people from different sectors. Skills can be taught!
• Every part of the recruitment process can be exaggerated or faked by the candidate and it’s estimated that 40 per cent of people lie in their resume and another 45 per cent of candidates admit not having been fully honest in an interview. While psychometric assessments can also be exaggerated, many assessments will mention in the final report if this may have been the case.
• Candidates who complete the assessments are often more motivated for the role than those who do not. 
• Psychometric assessments are no longer cumbersome and time-consuming. Many have short-form options, gamification elements and an excellent candidate experience.

Speed and due diligence are not mutually exclusive

Increased speed and efficiency can be achieved by using a recruitment system and automating regular tasks. It is important to keep that human touch when recruiting for frontline care roles. Contacting applicants by phone or text message soon after they apply appears to be best practice. Emails tend to get lost. In addition, many organisations choose to invite applicants to complete psychometric assessments before even looking at a resume. This is particularly handy for passive job seekers who may not have a resume on hand, or for job applicants from different sectors. Plus, it helps sift out applicants who weren’t really interested.

Although the Aged Care Worker Registration Scheme could come into effect this year, due diligence remains important and the responsibility of the organisation. In the end, it is better to get it right from the start than to smoothen the far-reaching ripple of hiring mistakes. 

Want to incorporate psychometric assessments in your talent strategy? The Care Advantage is offering readers five FREE candidate assessments – click here to get in touch and redeem.

With nearly two decades of experience in Human Resources, Marleen Galligan is a seasoned professional with a diverse skill set that includes recruitment, change management, training, marketing and communication, EVP, and psychometric assessments. Leveraging her educational background in psychology, Marleen provides valuable guidance to clients through a range of services and tools, including their Employee Referral app, Care Friends, to help turbocharge the power of employee referral and their Psychometric Assessment tool, Care Advantage, to effectively screen candidates.

The post How psychometric testing can help you recruit faster – without skipping due diligence appeared first on Recruitment Marketing.