Digital recruiting: Once a pain point, now a company privilege

According to Cornerstone OnDemand's latest IDC study, "Future Culture - Building a Culture of Innovation in the Age of Digital Transformation", 2018 recruitment is no longer a drag on the digital transformation of companies. On the contrary, it has become a tool of privilege to support change within an organization, notably by attracting the right profiles.

It is still necessary to recruit people with the necessary skills to develop a successful business, and it's a major challenge for recruiters. But according to this study, for 60% of companies, the first recruitment criterion in France is focused on the qualities and skills required for a position. So how should and can companies organize themselves to attract and convince the best candidates to join?

The most qualified talents are hard to find in the labor market, forcing organizations to adapt their recruitment efforts and, for this, the employer brand may provide leverage. This in particular would encourage:

• Full transparency on the recruitment process: Specify all stages of recruitment, while informing the candidate about the data that will be collected and how it will be used in the framework of the GRPD. Monitoring the recruitment process is a key step because it is important to define in advance how the final decision will be communicated, whether positive or negative. Additionally, do not ignore the candidate or mail out a standard response form in the event of either decision.
• The candidate experience must be clear and attractive: Provide easy access to different information, provide a realistic job description and expected skills, and set up an effective recruitment platform. These are the main keys to attract the most interesting profiles. In addition, this will prevent the candidate from having to repeat the information previously shared.
• Maintaining the company's employer brand: Are employees motivated and committed? Are they ready to recommend their company? Is the policy applied in terms of skills development and mobility perceptible by employees? These are some of the many points candidates are often sensitive to. For information, it is likely that they can get in touch with some current (or former) employees through platforms such as Glassdoor or LinkedIn - therefore, maintaining good relations with this ecosystem is paramount.

In addition, the recruitment process must adapt to both the business objectives of the company and the types of profiles sought. In fact, the strategy applied to recruiting highly qualified profiles must differ from the strategy put in place to recruit other employees. 

This last point generally supposes a larger number of applications, and requires particular attention especially during the first phase of the recruitment process. Hence the importance of getting the right people involved in the organization:

• The recruiters themselves: It is essential to provide the recruiters with a dashboard that allows a complete follow-up on the process for each of the open positions. The pre-selection phase of the candidates is often decisive for the rest of the process, and the recruiter can be helped by strong tools that allow profile proposals based on the skills sought, letting less profiles slip through the cracks.
• Internal Team Leaders: Providing them with simplified access to the list of profiles selected for the current position provides an objective and concrete view of the most qualified person for the position. Giving team leaders the opportunity to comment on this pre-selection can significantly speed up the recruitment process.
• Local officials: In some organizations, particularly in the industrial sector or in human services, it is possible that recruitment is finalized by the manager in the field and not by a specialized recruiter. It is therefore essential to include the local manager at the beginning of the recruitment process and allow them to accelerate the recruitment and integration of new employees.

"Today the difficulty of finding the right profiles and the right skills no longer represents a brake on the digital transformation of French companies, and our latest study proves it," says Geoffroy de Lestrange, Associate Director of Product Marketing EMEA. "Only 15% of them think that digitalization is a challenge. However, organizations need to recognize the value of putting in place internal processes that are aligned with their growth and recruiting goals. At Cornerstone, our teams support companies to identify their needs with them and thus implement the tools that will be best suited to their business."

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