Talking Talent Acquisition: Three Challenges & Three Tactics For 2023
Maria Moore, Chief Marketing Officer at HireRight discusses the three top Talent Acquisition challenges, and tips to overcome them.
Recently I had the honor of appearing on the Cooperatively Speaking Podcast, which is produced by HireRight partner E&I Cooperative Services. Each episode discusses the topics most important to procurement and end-users at schools and universities.
During my appearance, I talked about trends, challenges, and predictions in background screening for educational institutions. However, I also shared a deep dive into findings from HireRight’s 15th Annual Benchmark Report – a report that my team prepares each year – and many of those insights and the resulting conversation are applicable to organizations of all shapes and sizes, no matter their industry.
In particular, respondents to HireRight’s 2022 Benchmark Survey, on which our 15th Annual Benchmark Report is based, identified three talent acquisition challenges they think will remain top of mind for the next few years. As organizations prepare for 2023, it is critical to keep these challenges, and potential tactics to combat them, in mind.
Beyond the Job Listing: Three Top Talent Acquisition Challenges
First, let’s explore the top talent acquisition challenges for 2023-2025, as outlined by HR and risk professionals in this year’s Benchmark Survey. They are:
Finding qualified job candidates. This has long been a top challenge for many businesses and is likely to remain so for the foreseeable future. However, according to our survey respondents, it is a concern for more businesses in North America than in Europe, the Middle East, and Africa (EMEA) or Asia-Pacific (APAC). Whether it’s the “Great Resignation,” the “Great Rethink,” or “quiet quitting,” employers have a lot on their plates, and it’s arguably never been more important to get the right people into their organizations.
Meeting the benefits expectations of candidates. Benefits expectations are becoming more of a concern for businesses around the world, in particular in EMEA, where this was cited by over half (56%) of our survey respondents in the region. 40% of respondents in North America and 36% of respondents in APAC also felt this would be a problem for the next few years.
Making recruitment processes more efficient. This was seen as a long-term talent acquisition challenge according to a quarter of respondents from North America, 32% of respondents from EMEA, and 38% of respondents from APAC. There could be many ways to improve the efficiency of recruitment, but one such way could be by integrating your background screening provider with your applicant tracking system (ATS).
So, what can your organization do to meet these challenges head-on?
Looking Ahead: Three Tactics for 2023
Given the challenges faced by employers on a global level, organizations may find it helpful to employ tactics that build on what they already have. Three of these tactics are:
1. Focus on staff retention. It is often said that it is cheaper to retain your existing workforce than to hire new employees – and with unemployment in the U.S. at a rate of just 3.7% in October 2022, employers may be finding it even harder to get new talent into their organizations.
To keep employees engaged, businesses may wish to re-evaluate their compensation and benefits offerings, assess the career development pathways they have in place, and look at how they support their staff’s well-being during these challenging times. As many employees have become accustomed to working remotely, businesses may need to think more broadly to offer benefits that will impact the whole workforce, wherever they are based. For example, Employee Assistance Programs (EAP) can help colleagues with any difficulties they may be having at home and provide mental health support to the workforce remotely.
2. Elevate the candidate experience. With many businesses and educational institutions currently having a hard time recruiting new employees, the candidate experience from application through onboarding – and even into the first few months in a role – is essential. Candidates are likely applying to multiple jobs at the same time, and with the scarcity of suitable individuals for certain roles, it is important that your candidate experience is not the reason they take another job offer rather than yours.
From a background screening perspective, HireRight’s Applicant Center has been designed to enable candidates to provide the information needed to complete their pre-employment screening quickly. We provide a fully mobile candidate experience, with support for 25 languages. Our data shows that 93% of HireRight’s U.S. candidates complete the information requested on their candidate invite within a day, and our average turnaround for a U.S. background check is under two days, helping candidates to start their new roles sooner.
3. Drive operational efficiencies. From automation to innovation, there is increasing pressure to find ways to drive efficiencies throughout organizations and educational institutions. As I mentioned earlier, utilizing an applicant tracking system (ATS) and integrating this with your screening provider is one way to help to lighten the load for you and your candidates during the recruitment process.
From a background screening perspective, using a solution like HireRight’s Adjudication services can help to simplify the review of candidate screening reports, allowing recruiters to speed up their time-to-hire, streamlining hiring decisions by decreasing the number of reports requiring additional review.
Looking into 2023 and beyond, I think that organizations of all shapes and sizes will continue to contend with the challenges outlined in HireRight’s 15th Annual Benchmark Report. If you haven’t already, I encourage you to start thinking about how to address them.
Release Date: December 8, 2022
Maria Moore
Maria Moore is the Chief Marketing Officer for HireRight. Maria is responsible for overseeing all global marketing functions, strategic alliances, and the proposal team for HireRight. Collaborating with both internal teams and external partners, Maria will build awareness and brand recognition with a focus on vertical alignment, campaign scalability across its demand generation engine, and strategic business planning to drive revenue growth and market share internationally. Maria has nearly 30 years of marketing experience across a variety of industries, with a particular focus on key technology sectors, including software and cloud solutions. Before joining HireRight, she served as Vice President of Marketing at government technology solutions aggregator DLT Solutions, a Tech Data Company, where she modernized the company’s marketing platform and led the launch of integrated strategic campaigns led by market intelligence across key technology domains. Previous to her work at DLT Solutions, Maria held various leadership positions, most recently she was the Vice President of Marketing for Deltek and Senior Director of North America Field Marketing for Red Hat Maria earned a B.S. in psychology and marketing from Radford University.