It’s the last of our five-part series focused on hiring trends to expect in 2024, and we’re digging into the expansion of entry-level hiring. Across all industries, newcomers to the market are searching for positions that allow them to grow their skills and abilities. Check out the benefits of opting for entry-level workers whenever possible.
Recruiting Trends Coming in 2024
Missed any of the previous trends? Check them out!
Filling open positions has become increasingly challenging in the recent past. Between rising recruiting costs and smaller applicant pools, finding and bringing on talent can feel like an impossible task. But here’s one thing that many employers are overlooking: Asking for too much experience can rule out great candidates.
More than one-third of entry-level job listings posted on LinkedIn require at least three years of experience. This requirement essentially eliminates anyone who is a newcomer to the field, likely discouraging them from applying at all. And even those who do choose to apply despite not meeting all requirements may get filtered out before they even reach your desk.
As someone responsible for hiring, it’s worth opening your positions to true entry-level candidates. New graduates or those who are embarking on career changes can make excellent contributions to the team and can be great fits in a variety of roles.
4 Reasons to Consider Entry-Level Talent
In addition to the advantages outlined above, here are four reasons to consider people who are truly entry-level (or have no experience in the field).
Lower costs
It’s cheaper to hire an entry-level employee than someone with multiple years of experience, which can really help your company’s bottom line. According to research published by Zippia, the cost to hire and bring on an entry-level team member is approximately 180 percent less than an executive-level employee. Since the average cost to hire is around 20 percent of an entry-level employee’s salary, you can save a lot by opting for new talent rather than hiring a mid-level employee, which costs 1 to 1.5 times the salary amount.
Easy to train
Another advantage of entry-level employees is their trainability. They are less likely to bring highly developed workplace habits or ways of doing things, so department leaders and executives can train them to handle work in the way that is best suited for the company. Additionally, newcomers to the workplace may be more likely to build healthier professional habits, which contributes to the overall morale and culture.
Familiarity with technology
In most cases, an entry-level employee is part of the younger generation, which means they are probably more familiar with today’s technology. Younger jobseekers are generally comfortable with current hardware and software platforms, which can serve as a significant asset to your business.
Enhanced diversity
People who aren’t as seasoned in the workplace bring unique perspectives that can promote enhanced diversity. It’s worth investing in people who are excited about the prospect of what your company can achieve and willing to put in the work to bring organizational goals to fruition.
With the right approach, adapting to this 2024 hiring trend can transform the way your company finds and onboards talented individuals. Skills don’t necessarily equate to talent and ability, so make sure to broaden your search and widen your pool of applicants in roles that lend themselves to on-the-job training and education.
Starting any new job is like drinking from a firehose for at least the first few days. Onboarding a new employee means a huge data dump of company values and culture, job responsibilities, department procedures, and all the administrative tasks of setting up payroll and benefits. Remote employees face an extra hurdle in that all of their onboarding has to be done through virtual or text communication. Still, there are plenty of ways to make the virtual onboarding process run smoothly for both employer and employee. Here are some of our best tips for remote onboarding.
Why Include Remote Employees in the Onboarding Process?
Research suggests that around 86 percent of employees decide whether to stay with the company within the first few months. That means the first introduction and subsequent few weeks of a new employee’s time is crucial to retention. Small businesses in particular may find that the onboarding process ends up taking a backseat to the crush of daily operations.
“You’ll figure it out” may cut it for some self-starters, but other remote workers might need a more deliberate and informative onboarding experience. With onboarding tools built into ApplicantStack, you can set up the process once and go through it with every new hire. Plus, all the paperwork and tasks can be done from anywhere, ensuring that remote employees have access.
Onboarding remote employees takes some extra finesse and attention. Having a new employee follow someone around the office can accomplish in a few hours what a day of virtual meetings can’t quite match. But that’s no reason to give up on giving a remote employee the best possible introduction to the company. It may require some creativity and organization, but the goal of retention and employee satisfaction is worth the effort. ApplicantStack allows you to upload forms, create tasks, generate e-sign documents, and access lots of other helpful tools.
The Basics of Remote Onboarding
Remote and in-person workers want the same things from their job: clearly laid-out responsibilities, pride in their work, recognition for achievement, and a good work-life balance. To make sure that a remote worker feels a part of the company’s mission from day one, they need to be warmly welcomed and provided all the tools that can help them accomplish their work.
A well-structured onboarding program for virtual workers includes:
A clear outline and schedule of activities, like required video conferences with estimated duration and participants, expectation of camera on or off, viewing of pre-recorded content, time set aside to study company documents, participation in chats, introductions to other employees, or a virtual tour of the office
Computers and other required technology in good working order, along with detailed instructions, pre-recorded videos, or live training to set up the equipment properly
Clear policies on required availability via devices: times of day, in periods of time-intensive projects, or weekends and holidays
Links to e-sign necessary administration documents with clear communication on deadlines and functional upload capability for IDs, etc.
Access to supervisors and human resources for questions
Tips for Improving the Virtual Onboarding Process
Since the pandemic changed the work landscape, companies of all sizes have learned to embrace the idea of remote work. Here are some tried and true ways small and large businesses can implement to help your new virtual employee immediately feel like part of the team:
Include supervisors and department heads in the process of developing your company’s onboarding process.
Determine how your existing employees’ time is best used. Does 1-2 full days of onboarding meetings make sense? Or do you set up a week’s worth of half-days to allow supervisors to attend to other work? An onboarding expert at LinkedIn said, “We felt we could best do [onboarding] with shorter bursts spread over a week to allow flexibility with working from home, and then we could adapt as needed.”
Allow for breaks. Employees can feel free to turn off their cameras and stretch, take a short walk, or attend to a personal task. Some companies send a gift card for a virtual lunch break.
Don’t make assumptions about proficiency levels in tech. Offer plentiful training about the software your company uses for an employee who may be coming from a fully in-person job.
Designate an onboarding mentor whom a new employee can ask questions privately, if needed. Introduce the new employee to the mentor early in the process and allow check-in time to clear up any confusion as it happens.
Ship a welcome basket along with a laptop and any other required tech items. Include some useful and some fun items, such as:
A printed copy of the employee handbook that includes information like company values and culture, clear explanations of perks and benefits, bonus or incentive policies, company leave and holidays, and mandatory work hours or meetings.
Logo swag like coffee or water cups, notebooks, pens and pencils, or a framed graphic of the company mission statement
Desk items like ring lights, mouse pads, faux plants, organizing supplies, decorative file folders, or cleaning supplies
Required and bonus tech equipment like a working laptop with one or two chargers, bluetooth headphones, microphones, an external monitor, bluetooth keyboard and mouse, or tablet
Virtual Onboarding Follow-Up
The Kevin Eikenberry Group, a consultancy group, looked at research from Queens University in Canada regarding long-distance relationships. They suggest that some of the data can help managers with the onboarding process and first few weeks for remote workers. After a set amount of time, supervisors should check in with remote workers and assess mutually-agreed upon benchmarks.
Does your remote worker feel like a valuable part of the team?
Do they feel like boundaries of availability via tech are respected?
Were they supplied with all the relevant information from the beginning or have they been blindsided with new data?
Do they feel comfortable bringing up concerns and asking for clarification?
Are supervisors available and responsive?
Many businesses operate now with a combination of in-person and remote workers. Productivity and retention can often be determined by the quality of your onboarding process. A tool like ApplicantStack can help you organize your onboarding process for best success with remote workers.
Employee recruiting is a powerful part of your hiring toolbox. Asking employees to flesh out an applicant pool capitalizes on a natural human response to invite others to positive experiences. A referral program incentivizes and rewards employees for their contributions to the company.
A Jobvite survey in 2020 found that, after internal hires, employee referrals were the second-most effective hiring source and the second-most useful resume consideration factor. Here are some tips to build an internal referral program that really works.
Your Employees are Your Best Brand Ambassadors
From posts on social media to relaxed after-work happy hours, we all tend to share stories and experiences about work with friends and acquaintances. Ideally, that content is positive and encouraging. Employees who are engaged in and excited about their work – and share it – become the best ambassadors for the company’s brand or culture. If your company sells an end-user product, that’s free advertising. If your company needs to fill positions, that’s expanding your potential applicant pool.
You can reward this behavior by creating opportunities for internal referrals for hiring. Rewards can vary; no one referral program fits all companies. The first steps involve examining company culture so your employees feel inclined to bring qualified candidates to the table.
Employee Recruiting Requires a Strong Foundation
It may seem overly simple, but the most important foundation for collecting hiring referrals from your employees is their job satisfaction. You can’t control each employee’s feelings about every aspect of their job, but you can provide a company culture that values each member of the team. Some tangible ways to achieve this include:
Maintaining Good Company Culture. Conduct surveys that help identify where company culture is thriving and lacking. Then, take that information to improve where possible. Good company culture includes well-known and accepted values like trust, diversity, mentorship, and autonomy. It has clear policies on work and dress code flexibility, automation, and tangible and intangible benefits.
Paying Employees What They’re Worth. Ideally, employees will have been hired at a salary they’re happy with. Implementing a program of consistent salary reviews and an open-door policy for negotiations goes a long way in helping employees feel valued.
Communicating Perks and Benefits Consistently. While keeping some benefits confidential might seem important, it can lead to gossip and jealousy among employees. When people feel cheated or left out of perks, even if the company feels it has valid reasons, it can negatively affect employee morale. A well-communicated and consistent benefits policy encourages transparency and unity.
Communicating Clearly Open Jobs and Responsibilities. Clarity and detail in job postings is important, allowing potential candidates to see all the requirements, benefits, and salary from the first interaction. For internal recruiting, you should provide all the same detailed information, along with any additional tidbits a current employee might need to know, especially if the job opening isn’t in their department. Facts like which team a person might work on, sample projects, details around the office layout, and access to perks are conversational and can help an employee sell the position to a friend.
Rewarding Referrals and Employee Recruiting Efforts. Consider the cost of hiring an employee from a wide open pool. The Society of Human Resource Management puts the median number at around $1,200. If an employee helps you circumvent that cost, a gift card for lunch may not be quite enough. Recruiter Rikka Brandon suggests, “Offering your team an incentive that actually makes a difference to them may just give them the motivation to be intentional and active about recruiting.”
5 Ways to Involve Employees in Recruiting
Now that we’ve identified how to make sure your company is a rewarding workplace for employees to recommend, here are some ideas of how to build an internal referral program:
Start at Onboarding. Every time you bring a new employee on, explain the referral process. Help them feel like an important part of the recruiting team from their first day. Even if you don’t currently have openings, this effort ensures that future opportunities aren’t lost to “I never heard about it.”
Allow Talent Acquisition Team to Present at Company Meetings. Periodic presentations ensure employees can hear about new developments in the program and creates a forum for questions.
Remind Employees How to Find Open Listings. What seems obvious to those involved in the hiring process may not be so clear to busy employees. Ensure there is a centralized location for open positions that’s easy to access. Provide periodic reminders along with highlighting incentives.
Identify a Streamlined Process for Submissions. Every company will have a different preferred way to receive employee referrals. Make sure your organization’s process is simple and direct. You could create a web form or an email address that remains the same, even when people leave their roles. Periodically remind the staff how it works.
Encourage Feedback on the Program. If employee participation is low, you may need to take a hard look at the communication, process, or incentives. Ask for honest feedback without fear of retribution.
Manage Your Candidates with ApplicantStack
Once you’ve examined company culture, created an easy-to-use program for submissions, told everyone about it, and the referrals start coming in, you need a system to make sure none of the stellar candidates fall through the cracks. Even if you don’t end up hiring a referral, it’s vital to respect the efforts of your employees with follow-through.
ApplicantStack is the perfect tool to easily and efficiently sort, rank, and track the candidates in every step of the process. Internal notes can help you track where the referral came from. Your employee can receive their reward and your gratitude for a new valued member of the team.
Countless companies of all sizes and operating in all locations are planning to expand their teams in 2024. As you make plans to recruit and bring on top talent, explore our guide to trends to expect this year. We’re rounding up the 2024 recruiting trends to expect, regardless of the industry or size of your business.
Recruiting Trends Coming in 2024
Here’s what we have covered in our five-part series, and what’s still to come:
When thousands of companies shifted to allow employees to work from home for their safety, some emphasized that the change was temporary, while others expected to remain remote indefinitely. But as the needs of businesses have changed and employees have gotten used to the work-from-home life, conflicts have arisen between those who want to remain remote but are working for companies that expect team members to return to the office.
The shift to allow workers to perform remote work caused a lot of businesses to reconsider their operations and whether people really needed to spend 40+ hours a week in the office. And while there are certainly advantages of in-office work (improved collaboration, access to resources, a sense of belonging, to name a few), many workers love the option to work from home as well.
The hybrid workplace model is an ideal blend of the two worlds, offering employees access to what they want while emphasizing the importance of the company culture and team-based atmosphere.
Benefits of Hybrid Schedules
A hybrid schedule is a more flexible option, which appeals to people in all stages of life. Parents of young children may need a little extra time in the mornings to get everyone ready and out the door. Being able to work from home allows them to use the time they might have spent commuting to take care of the necessary tasks. School pick-up is also much easier to navigate when a worker is remote. Even those without children can benefit from a more peaceful atmosphere, such as a home office that’s free from the distractions of a bustling office.
For employers, a hybrid workplace model can cut costs. You can spend less on physical office space and supplies, as well as the costs associated with keeping the lights on and the workspace fully outfitted with desks for every member of the team.
From a health perspective, the original reason behind the shift to remote work, people may get sick less when working remotely. If an employee isn’t feeling well, they may still be able to knock out a few work tasks at home without the risk of spreading germs around the office. And those who do choose to work in-office will certainly appreciate not being exposed to colds, the flu, and other concerning illnesses.
If your company can swing it, consider how offering a hybrid schedule might work for new hires. This offering can serve as an appealing aspect of an open position, particularly for an applicant who is looking for flexibility. By including the option to create a hybrid schedule, your company can appeal to top talent while aligning with what today’s job-seeker is looking for in their next role.
Talent acquisition occupies a big chunk of a company’s time and focus. Whether your company is the size of Apple or a local trucking company, hiring qualified employees demands a certain amount of attention and organization. Consider these 5 reasons why perfecting your talent acquisition process can lead to long-term benefits for your company.
1. Talent Acquisition Efforts = A Valuable Business Partner
For a rapidly growing small business, tasks like posting jobs, receiving applications and resumes, and setting up interviews can be spread across personnel in all departments. Sometimes the urgency of the task means employees are forced to take on additional roles and responsibilities. While input from various departments is valuable, a scattershot approach to hiring can lead to missed opportunities, tardy communication, and soured relationships with potential hires.
A dedicated talent acquisition team will have a tight focus on helping the business thrive. Team members will see a holistic view of all departments and staff. They will act as liaison between upper management and departments to identify hiring gaps and do the administrative legwork to find applicants to fill those roles. A tool like ApplicantStack can further reduce the time required for posting available positions, organizing the applicants’ information, and keeping a detailed log of communication.
2. Talent Acquisition Team Analyzes Pay Equity
According to the California Commission on the Status of Women and Girls, unequal pay can be a result of direct or indirect biases based on gender, race, incorrect perceptions about employees’ career ambitions, or simply on past experience. In the hustle and bustle of everyday operations, management likely doesn’t have the time available to analyze each employee’s pay status and interrogate its fairness.
From job posting to onboarding, your talent acquisition department can apply some of the following suggestions from the Commission:
Remove bias from hiring process by making sure all genders are represented at each stage of the hiring process.
Encourage a company culture where employees can discuss their salaries without any fear of recrimination.
Allow employees to be heard by management on concerns of compensation.
Review and establish fair and equitable compensation packages for every position so pay is reflective of the job requirements rather than subjective criteria.
Competent talent acquisition professionals can create a comfortable atmosphere around compensation from a candidate’s first interaction with your company. Transparency during the hiring process helps weed out any employee who turns out to be unwilling to commit to an undisclosed salary.
According to Aptitude Research, a whopping 44 percent of candidates drop out of the process if pay isn’t disclosed from the beginning and it doesn’t meet their criteria once revealed. Transparency and open dialogue help weed those candidates out from the beginning.
3. Talent Acquisition Teams Facilitate Succession Planning
In addition to hiring outside talent, your TA team can identify action plans for employees within the company to fill roles now or in the future. Promoting from within the company takes a great deal of the unknown from the process and can be an encouraging experience for a valued employee.
The University of Washington created a toolkit for assessing how succession planning could benefit your business. Aside from immediate positions that need to be filled, the tool helps company leaders identify a holistic view of current and future goals. It then helps identify which employees can be trained or mentored into filling positions that support those goals. They’re tasked with working with upper management to quantify the value and urgency of those roles to create a long-term strategic plan.
4. Talent Acquisition Teams Identify Successes and Failures in the Hiring Process
Whether your company is consistently hiring to meet growth or hires in bursts such as seasonal work, there is always room for improvement in the process. A dedicated TA department will review and evaluate each hire. A tool like ApplicantStack produces detailed reports that give your company valuable data.
“Source Performance” helps you know where your applicants came from.
“Time in Stage for Active Candidates” shows how long applicants sit in any section of the workflow.
“Hire Metrics” gives percentage hired, among other metrics.
“Stage Conversion” reveals where each candidate sits in the hiring process.
These reports are not only useful for the active hiring process but provide a window into the overall efficacy of the team’s efforts. It can help identify repeated breakdowns in the process and point to places with needed improvement.
5. Talent Acquisition Teams Contribute to Employee Retention
A report published by Madeline Laurano at Aptitude Research revealed that 49 percent of companies surveyed set employee retention as a top priority. Companies that link talent acquisition with employee retention see vast improvements in metrics like employee turnover (60 percent vs 32 percent) and employee production (62 percent vs 20 percent).
The report also found that many companies still see hiring and retention as a job for separate organizations. In fact, a quality TA department can recognize strategic initiatives that ensure retention of those employees your company worked so hard to hire. It takes many worker hours to recruit, gather resumes, interview, negotiate, hire, and onboard new employees.
Retention has a direct impact on an organization’s stability, long-term success, and productivity. High turnover rates are disruptive to operations and impact growth. Using the metrics reports from ApplicantStack along with personal interactions between employees, hiring managers, and management, employee retention becomes a collaborative effort that benefits worker and company alike.
Businesses of all sizes can benefit from a thoughtful look at their hiring processes. Even if your staff and budget feel small, an investment in dedicated talent acquisition professionals may make all the difference to company culture, productivity, and retention.
