This Sunday is the 95^th Academy Awards® ceremony honoring the highly acclaimed movies of 2022. Lead and supporting actors and actresses will be recognized. The best costume design, cinematography, directing, musical score, and song will all be named! The red carpet will be filled with celebrities, nominees, and the who’s who! Nominees will anxiously be waiting to find out if they will be named “the best.” If the Oscar® will go to…. them!

But what makes someone “the best”? How do you decide who really is deserving of that gold-plated trophy?

What about when it comes to staffing? How can you walk the red carpet and be “the best” in staffing? How can you stand out from competitors and be the best staffing agency for candidates and clients?

In this article, we will look at 6 “award categories”, how you can become the best in each, and ultimately become the best in the “Staffing Academy Awards” to stand out from your competitors!

Recruiter In a Leading Role

A recruiter can be looked at similarly to an actor or actress in a leading role. The lead actor or actress plays a crucial role in the success of the movie and storyline. Similarly, a recruiter has the leading role when it comes to each candidate. They are the first person a candidate meets and are the main person that guides that candidate throughout the recruiting cycle. The recruiter needs to lead the candidate throughout each step, be organized, clearly and regularly communicate, and be someone that the candidate wants to work with.

The recruiter plays a large role in facilitating the successful placement of a candidate.

To have the best recruiter in a leading role, it’s important to have a recruiting manual that outlines procedures, so all recruiters follow a universal process. No matter whom a candidate is working with, they should have a similar experience with each recruiter. All candidates should have the best experience possible, so they are not only successfully placed, but are retained.

Additionally, recruiters need to be someone that candidates can honestly talk to. A strong recruiter/candidate relationship is important, so candidates can build trust in the recruiter and be someone they want to work with. This can also help eliminate ghosting. If a candidate has a good relationship and experience with a recruiter, they will be more honest if they aren’t interested in a position and will be there if they are. While staffing agency software will help you tremendously, you need strong recruiters to close the deal and gain the employee you’re after.

Writing (Original Job Description)

Writing a good job description that stands out is like writing an original screenplay. An award-winning original screenplay is different. It’s something that hasn’t been seen or done before. When writing a job description, you can think of it similarly to an original screenplay. What makes this job different from other jobs? Why would someone want to work in this position and for this company?

According to LinkedIn, candidates are looking at nearly twice as many job postings per application as they were two years ago. This means the first two sentences of a job description should draw them in. The job description needs to be enticing so they keep reading.

Put yourself in the candidates’ shoes. If you were them, what would be important to you? What would make you apply? Think about it as if you are looking at a candidate’s resume. When you have a stack of resumes to look through, you briefly skim each one. If keywords don’t jump out at you right away, then you move on to the next one. This same dynamic is happening in reverse, with job-seekers filtering through hundreds or thousands of job postings.

What to Include in Your Job Description in 2023

Statistics have shown including remote work or a hybrid schedule in a job description can increase your application rate. Since the pandemic, many workers are still looking for a remote or hybrid schedule. If your job offers either, be sure you include it in your job description. Additionally, including salary ranges and benefits can also help with your application rate. Candidates know right up front if the range fits within the salary they are looking for. There will also be no surprises later.

Inflation is a big concern now as well. Are there any benefits you offer or can offer that would entice someone to apply that is concerned about rising prices? Perhaps you can offer a sign-on bonus or another incentive such as a 1-month free meal subscription service, grocery voucher, free subscription to a streaming service, etc. These are small “out of the box” incentives that can be included in a job description to help stand out. These incentives can be the slight differentiation you need to secure candidates who might otherwise be on the fence about the role you’re offering.

Including a video about the company can also help boost your job description. A video is a bonus for the applicant that allows them to further understand the culture of the company and see if it’s a place where they can see themselves working.

Incentive Styling

We touched a little bit on including incentives in the job description, but what could an incentive package look like? “Incentive styling” is like Makeup and Hairstyling in a movie. Makeup and hair enhance the look of the characters. An actor or actress can of course be on screen without any special makeup or hairstyling, but with it, it improves the overall look and feel of the character and makes that character more real.

When you offer incentives to employees, you may not need to offer additional incentives to employees besides pay, but it enhances the overall job experience for that employee. It also makes your company desirable to work for.

In addition to pay, think about what other incentives, and benefits you offer to employees. Are they working well? Have you received good feedback? Or is it time to revamp your incentive package?

When it comes to incentives, think of incentives that employees are interested in. Perhaps they are most interested in monetary bonuses, or they would like free tickets to sports and entertainment events, or maybe they are interested in receiving employee discounts at stores. Are meal services most important to them? Or do they want a free subscription to a streaming service? There are many incentive possibilities, but knowing what incentives entice employees is key for an effective incentive program. A simple way to do this is by sending out a survey to employees to learn what incentives are important to them.

The second component to an incentive program is the way incentives are distributed. There can be a sign-on incentive, an incentive for attendance, an incentive for the length of time at a job, you can even hold an employee of the month or quarter raffle drawing, where employees are entered if they meet certain criteria. Work-related incentives can help encourage employees to perform better and go the extra mile on the job.

Communication Design

Communication design is like costume design in a movie. A costume is what makes a character come to life on screen. Without costumes, it’s hard to have a character in a movie. Similarly, without a good communication structure with your candidates, it’s difficult to recruit.

Your communication design should engage candidates, be convenient for candidates, and also should include self-service tools for them to communicate with you. When it comes to communicating with a candidate and vice versa, make it easy. The candidate will appreciate it and it’s a way to help retain employees.

Set a standard communication method and guidelines at your staffing agency for recruiters to follow. Email vs. text? Text vs. call? Situations will of course vary but try setting guidelines for communicating with candidates based on the success you have had. What should be the primary form of communicating with a candidate?

Texting is a powerful form of communicating with candidates, especially because texts have a 98% open rate. Texting should be a major part of your communication design. Texting can even be taken a step further by incorporating automation. This can save both you and the candidate time. Send a text proposing an interview time, a job offer, confirming their first day on the job, etc. Then set up ways for them to respond and based on their response they will be triggered by another text message. Providing simple response options such as “Yes” or “No”, gives them the ability to respond faster and skips laborious back-and-forth communication. Efficiency is king in staffing agencies, and streamlining this communication with candidates will save you a ton of time.

Having a candidate mobile app is another fantastic way for candidates to not only be able to communicate with the recruiter but it gives them access to self-service tools. Through a mobile app, candidates can be given the option to message the recruiter. Additionally, if candidates have access to a mobile app or web portal, they can upload their resume, certifications, and other documentation by themselves, on their own time.

When you begin working with a candidate, run your communication style by them. Are they okay with receiving text messages? Do they feel comfortable using the self-service tools available to them? Confirming candidates are okay with your communication method will ensure a good experience when working together.

Engagement Effects

Your engagement effects are like your special effects in a movie. Special effects allow the audience to immerse themselves in a film further than if those special effects weren’t there. Think of a movie like Avatar. If the audience just saw what was filmed, the movie would look nothing like how it was supposed to look with special effects. It would quickly lose your attention because it wouldn’t be as interesting to watch. Candidate engagement should be similar to special effects, as the candidate’s experience should be one that keeps them immersed with your staffing agency.

What are your engagement effects? How do you keep candidates engaged with you pre, during, and post-assignment? This is where automation can play an even bigger role. Through automation tools, you can setup automatic messages to go out to candidates. We touched on this a little bit earlier on ways you can use texting automation to communicate with candidates before they are placed. Email and texting can play a large role during an employee’s assignment and afterward. Set up automatic messages throughout their assignment to check-in. After their assignment, regularly send them information about other opportunities available. Staffing software solutions generally offer several ways of reaching out to a candidate through automation, saving your recruiters time on each and every candidate.

A candidate mobile app can also help with engagement. A mobile app that is offered to candidates gives them the opportunity to search and apply for jobs on their own, enter time, view upcoming interviews and jobs, view W2’s and other employee documentation, and even get directions to their job. A mobile app is a powerful tool because it not only engages candidates before and during an assignment, but afterwards. All of their information is stored right in the app. Why bother working with another staffing agency when they have built that relationship with yours and they have that history already stored?

To get started with some of your engagement effects, reach out to your staffing software provider to see if they have tools or partners you can use. Most staffing software solutions will offer some form of these communication channels, but finding the one that suits your agency best will ensure a smooth transition into using the new software.

Process Editing

Process editing can be simply compared to film editing. A movie’s raw footage must be edited, otherwise, the movie won’t have a cohesive flow. Sometimes in the editing room, something is tried, but it doesn’t work, so they try something else, such as cutting the scene differently or changing the song in the background. In staffing, processes must constantly evolve. What has worked for years, may no longer work. Or maybe you tried something and it’s not working out well. Processes must constantly be assessed and re-evaluated.

Additionally, technology and the industry climate are constantly changing. Processes need to be adapted to fit into industry changes. By constantly re-evaluating and “editing your processes”, it will help you to continuously grow and stay ahead of the curve. The market for staffing agencies is always evolving, and the agencies within this industry have to constantly adapt. On the positive side, these adaptations are generally for the purposes of making things faster, more efficient, or less stressful, so look to these changes with optimism.

Best Staffing Agency

And the Oscar® goes to… YOUR staffing agency! Each of these categories plays an important role in helping staffing companies stand out from competitors. It helps you recruit and retain the best candidates. In return, these can also be used as selling points when working with prospective clients. Two of the most important things that a client wants are qualified employees and a short time to hire. The above methods can help you be the best in both. It’s your turn to walk the red carpet.

Be the best in staffing by staying equipped with the right staffing software tools. Schedule your demo of Ultra-Staff EDGE!

Written by Jennifer Roeslmeier Mikels

Jennifer Roeslmeier Mikels is a Sr. Digital Marketing and Brands Manager at Automated Business Designs, developers of Ultra-Staff EDGE Staffing Software. Jennifer regularly publishes articles about key topics surrounding the staffing industry with both local and national staffing associations.

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