How Are Job Seekers Discovering Career Opportunities?

4 keys to revamping hiring strategy in 2022

As the pandemic continues, more Americans are leaving their jobs for better options. Employers nationwide are finding it a difficult task to find the right talent and, in some cases, scrambling to fill open roles. The number of job openings is on an upward trajectory and high turnover paints a bleak picture for those looking to fill those talent gaps. 
 
Companies that can offer career mobility, support, and culture find it easier to retain top talent across many industries. The pandemic has changed the employee’s expectations and is forcing companies to discover new avenues to find and retain job seekers, especially those with specialty skills.

Where Job Seekers Are Headed to Find Their Next Job

Every day, the staff at Yoh focuses on finding high-impact professionals to deliver large-scale work solutions. In our latest Harris Poll, nearly 1,000 job-seeking Americans were surveyed to see where job seekers are headed to find their next opportunity. 

This data highlights a number of interesting trends useful for hiring managers and recruiters as they work to match themselves up with qualified job seekers during some seriously challenging times for employers.  

● Word of mouth and recruiters remain effective tools for job seekers.
The job market is being moved simply by people talking. Just under half (48%) of employed and not employed job seekers are using word of mouth to find job opportunities. More than one-third (34%) of the highly-sought-after employed workers looking for jobs are actively using recruiters to find their next job.

● Americans are actively using job boards to find new opportunities. 
Nearly three-quarters (67%) of job-seeking Americans (both those who are employed and not employed but looking) are using job boards to search for job opportunities, while just over half (51%) of that same group is using social media to find job opportunities.

● Job seekers with higher household incomes are more than likely to use a recruiter to find a new job.
Nearly half (40%) of job seekers with a household income of $100,000 or more are using a recruiter, compared to 36% with household income between $75,000-$99,999, 27% with household income between $50,000-$74,999, and 18% with household income under $50,000. 

College graduate job seekers are nearly twice as likely as those with only some college or a high school degree or less to use recruiters to find new job opportunities (45% vs. 24% and 22% respectively).

4 Keys to Revamping Hiring Strategy in 2022

Certainly, the struggle to find high-performing talent is real and doesn’t look to be easing up any time soon. With that, there are strategies and approaches employers can take to help them stand out from a crowded job field and increase their chances of landing highly skilled talent.

Embrace and Promote the Remote and Hybrid Work Environment

The pandemic changed the way people work; there is no question. Remote work is no longer a nice-to-have but a must-have for a majority of today’s traditional office workers. In fact, almost half of U.S. workers say they would take up to a 5 percent cut to their salary to work remotely at least some of the time after the pandemic has ended. 

And while a shift to fully remote work or a hybrid model may scare some hiring managers, consider this – a recent Yoh survey found that a quarter of employed Americans would be open to fully remote work at companies outside of their geographic area. 

The ability to choose remote work not only makes workers happier, but also increases the potential candidate pool from which a company can hire. While this model isn’t for every individual and every company, offering a hybrid environment at worst is fast becoming the norm for businesses today.

Create a Culture of Mentorship and Sponsorship

Especially in the remote work world, assigning a mentor for new hires to rely upon can be the difference between someone’s success or failure at a job and their overall job satisfaction. According to a recent study, millennials intending to stay with their organization for more than five years are twice as likely to have a mentor than not (68% vs. 32%). 

With a defined program in place, mentors can help guide employees through company culture, act as a sounding board for questions they may not want to ask their supervisors and help them develop tangible goals and skills. However, it’s important to not just assign a new hire a mentor without the assurance that the mentor has the time, ability and defined process to make the relationship work for all parties.

Be Transparent About Hiring and Promotion Policies 

Sitting at a home office or working in a hybrid model, it can be difficult for leaders and supervisors to see professional growth the way they would pre-pandemic. In many cases, workers are now defined only by output, and the more intangible qualities of leadership, initiative and creativity get overlooked. 

That’s why it’s especially important to help new hires and long-time workers set realistic goals on what it takes to get them to the next level. Goals should not only be set to increase talent development, but they should also be aligned to your company's mission to make it clearer to workers what their achievements mean to the organization as a whole. 

No one wants to be the one questioning why a high-performing employee left, only to find out they didn’t even know how close they were to being promoted in the first place. 

Provide Feedback to Employees Regularly 

Another part of training and development somewhat lost in the pandemic is the consistency of employee feedback. Whether schedules are too busy or the formality of reviews has gone by the wayside in the remote world, neither are good excuses to forgo a regular feedback process.

According to a Gallup survey, employees who actively look for other employment after receiving positive feedback are just 3.6 percent. Connecting with employees on a regular basis to give them positive and constructive feedback is critical to retaining talent. 

Hiring managers and employers, in general, are at a bit of a crossroads in 2022. Talent has the upper hand right now, and those employers who fail to adjust their strategies and demands of workers could be left with open roles much longer than they’re comfortable with. Certainly, partnering with talent experts, who have deep talent pools and know how to attract and retain the best talent, is a start. But in order to be competitive in this challenging talent market employers find themselves in, it will require some shifts in the way businesses approach hiring entirely.

Emmett McGrath is the President of Yoh, a Day & Zimmermann Company.  Connect Emmett McGrath