How to Ensure No Relevant Candidate Is Accidentally Overlooked

The first step is acknowledging the bias. The next is to take concrete actions towards ensuring more diversity and finding talent outside your standard process.

Tackle Unconscious Bias with AI and Collaborative Evaluation

Our tendency is to favor people who share similarities with us or someone we like.

Unconscious bias is natural but has a nasty way of leading to inaccurate judgments, overlooked talent, or even discrimination. We all have subconscious or stereotypical ideas of our ideal candidates: appearance, education, personal traits, previous work experience, and hobbies. Our tendency is to favor people who share similarities with us or someone we like. However, these preferences have nothing to do with the candidate’s actual competencies or even cultural fit.

Based on your search keywords, the technology will suggest candidates that are likely to have relevant competencies.

So how can we diminish bias? Try using AI-based recruitment software that focuses on the preferred competencies instead of secondary factors. You choose the criteria, and the software automatically introduces the best candidates without involving human subjectivity.

The technology also helps you scout ideal candidates with incomplete CVs or applications. Based on your search keywords, the technology will suggest candidates that are likely to have relevant competencies even when they have failed to list them. Today’s recruitment is all about helping the candidates, not expecting them to be professional job seekers.

To carry out an objective process, you might want to include as many perspectives as possible. Try a video recruitment tool for collaborative evaluation. The future team members and the hiring managers can watch the recordings whenever it best suits them and give their input.

Acknowledge Passive Candidates

Not every ideal candidate is actively browsing job advertisements. According to LinkedIn, 70% of the global workforce is passive candidates (Talent Solutions Report).

By investing in long-term employer branding, you can increase the quantity and even quality of your future candidates.

They might feel comfortable enough in their current positions or simply be unaware of more tempting challenges. By investing in long-term employer branding, you can increase the quantity and even quality of your future candidates. Share content that might interest them, invite them to your events, and give them a chance to fall in love with you.

Some might mistake passive candidates for unmotivated ones. However, these candidates usually make an even better fit because they are switching jobs due to pure desire, not because of desperation.

Remember that you might already be acquainted with your ideal candidate. With a modern recruitment system, you can easily find matches from previously rejected candidates or even former employees. If paths cross at one point, it doesn’t mean they can’t cross once again.

Read more about building talent communities that work.

New career opportunities should also be introduced internally before sharing them anywhere else. When current employees are encouraged to pursue growth in their positions or even in completely new business areas, they feel valued and are more likely to commit to your company long-term.

Turn the Tables with Social Recruiting

Social selling has transformed the recruitment game. Companies are no longer just sitting back and expecting the applications to flow in but actively reaching out and putting themselves out there.

There are more relevant candidates out there than you realize. You just need to rethink your determination and actively start multiplying your chances. Here’s how to step up your game and become the king or queen of social recruiting.

Humanize the Talent Acquisition Game

Grow your network and engage in conversations. Join relevant Facebook and LinkedIn groups. Candidates are looking to connect with people instead of companies. They are interested in engaging in two-way conversations rather than distant recruitment processes. You have the power to transform the recruitment process into on as human as it gets.

Adapt and Learn

Your goal is to learn what drives your ideal candidates, what competencies they have, and what they value in their work. The best recruiters learn to speak their candidates’ language and spot how they would like to be contacted. Not everyone is okay with a cold call or LinkedIn InMail. Start a dialogue and slowly work your way up to the point where it’s relevant to move to a job proposition.

Understand Your Goals

Why invest time in a candidate who isn’t interested in your company after all? If you make a good impression, you can easily ask them to join your Talent Community, where they can get interesting event invites, articles, or the opportunity to be rewarded for recommending a friend with relevant competencies.

Make sure to set appropriate goals. Don’t just track the number of applications but pay attention to traffic on your career page.

Continue reading more about the biggest challenges in recruitment and dig deeper into different solutions!

Conclusion

There are more relevant candidates out there than you might think. Step away from your standard process and rethink what relevant candidates might look like or where they could be found.

Take a step towards more bias-free recruitment and acquire the best talent. Request a demo to learn more about TalentAdore’s AI-based recruitment software.

Writer: Essi Järvinen, Zesty