5 Tips to Boost Your Employer Brand

Branding plays a significant role in attracting and retaining candidates. As players in your niche compete for top-notch candidates, which is limited, you need to bolster your employer branding to stay competitive and hire the best talent.

Let’s explore some simple yet effective ways to boost your employer brand.

What is Employer Branding?

Employer branding is the total of the perceptions of your brand or reputation by various stakeholders, including employees, job seekers, and more. It is the stepping stone to establishing yourself as a differentiator and, therefore, a preferred employer.

According to LinkedIn statistics, 72% of recruiting leaders worldwide agreed that employer branding has a great impact on hiring.

While it might seem overwhelming to think of the stages in building your brand, following the easy ways outlined below could make it seem an absolute breeze!

5 Best Ways to Boost Your Employer Brand

Adopt a user-friendly website and a simple application process

Candidates or job seekers visit your website to check for job postings. Ensure they can do this easily and fill out the application form in just a few minutes. Too lengthy applications could demotivate the candidate, causing them to drop off midway, thereby hampering your brand image. 

Ensure timely and assertive communication

Quite often, candidates lose interest in proceeding with the interview process due to a lack of timely communication. Make it a point to promptly intimate the applicants at each stage of the selection process, regardless of whether they have cleared the round.

Check and respond to your employee reviews regularly

There are various sites on which your current or former employees may post reviews. Some may be positive, and others negative. Regardless of the nature of the review, respond to each, as this would build your brand as a responsible and concerned employer. Besides, gather feedback from employees through surveys and focus on areas needing improvement.

Identify appropriate candidate personas

Candidate personas essentially include the attributes like geographical location, qualifications, expertise, and more. Craft a persona for an applicant each time you open a new job posting. This would help look for the right candidates at the right places. For example, you can better target a marketer on Pinterest or Instagram, while for a developer, you would opt for something like GitHub.

Highlight your employee benefits in the job postings

Mostly, candidates take a first glance at the benefits and remuneration that you offer for a job role. Make sure to showcase your benefits packages which include health insurance, paid leaves besides onsite travel, and upskilling opportunities. This would go a long way in boosting your employer brand.

Conclusion

The job market poses stiff competition to employers like never before. That said, it becomes imperative to boost your employer brand and stand apart. A Glassdoor survey indicates that 92% of people would consider changing jobs if offered by a company of great reputation. Follow the useful tips outlined in the blog and carve a niche for yourself as the most sought-after employer.

About the Author

Simon Chou is the Vice President of Operations and Growth at BCjobs.ca. Over the course of his career, he carved a niche in brand development, marketing strategy, and online presence for startups. Prior to joining BCJobs.ca, Simon was an advisor for several global blockchain projects including Litecoin, NEM, and Ripple. In the past, he also worked with Fortune 500 companies in the healthcare space through SM Digital—a global marketing agency.

The post 5 Tips to Boost Your Employer Brand appeared first on BC Jobs Blog.

How ChatGPT Can Improve the Hiring Process?

Technology paves the way for innovation, which makes our lives simpler. Artificial Intelligence, AI-based tools are the future. One such innovation is – ChatGPT, an AI-powered chatbot that has transformed how businesses function.

While ChatGPT has influenced several business areas, it plays a significant role in improving the hiring process across industries.

In this article, we delve into what ChatGPT is and how it improves the hiring process.

What is ChatGPT?

Launched in November 2022, ChatGPT is a very interesting new AI-enabled chatbot developed by an organization, OpenAI. Regarded as a next-gen AI chatbot, ChatGPT responds to your queries in a much more realistic and human-like manner. All you need to do is just type in your queries, and the chatbot finds the answer from its robust database to respond in just a few minutes. 

While ChatGPT finds its applications across business functions, it plays a pivotal role in improving the hiring process.

How can ChatGPT improve the hiring process?

ChatGPT holds the potential to optimize the hiring process in multiple ways, some of which include:

Create candidate assessments

Depending on the sector, job role, and domain you are hiring for, you can just type in the question for interviews or assessments of candidates. For example, just typing something like “Create a list of 10  HR interview questions for a software developer in finance domain…” could fetch you the questions. 

Likewise, recruiters and hiring managers can prepare assessments conveniently for various job roles across business functions. This greatly reduces the administrative workload and helps them focus on other vital business goals.

Simplifies Candidate Search

Searching for candidates from a large database could seem daunting to recruiters. However, if they use applicant tracking software, they might use the boolean strings to fetch results. In that case, ChatGPT is capable of writing the boolean search strings for you, thus making your life easier.

Creating email templates, advertisements, and job descriptions

Recruiters must spend so much time creating email templates, drafting advertisements, and designing job descriptions. ChatGPT handles all these tasks efficiently, thereby reducing the workload on the recruiters considerably. 

Improves Candidate Experience

Quite often, candidates leave the recruiting process midway due to a lack of proper communication from recruiters. Furthermore, with loads of applications to handle, recruiters don’t have the time to send out a response to each candidate. ChatGPT comes to the rescue. It lets recruiters draft personalized messages and emails instantly, thereby automating communication with a human touch.

Conclusion

ChatGPT holds vast potential to revolutionize the hiring process across industry verticals. From creating candidate assessments and drafting job descriptions to automating communication and enhancing the candidate experience. With ChatGPT performing these manual administrative tasks, you can improve your HR department while allowing recruiters and hiring managers to shift their focus to more strategic objectives.

About the Author

BCjobs.ca is Western Canada’s largest job board, and host of “Innovators” a weekly podcast interviewing top recruiters in BC and across Canada. Check out our recent interview with Inga Jonsdottir, Engineering Manager at Wealthsimple (Podcast link) and DataDome’s Chief Marketing Officer, Aurelie Guerierri (Podcast link).

The post How ChatGPT Can Improve the Hiring Process? appeared first on BC Jobs Blog.

Sometimes referred to as job fairs or recruitment fairs, these events are dedicated to scouting future employees. Often hosted by universities or colleges, some fairs are designed with student’s futures in mind. There are also career fairs organized around a specific industry. These fairs welcome everyone interested in that particular field.

The Help

Typically, career fairs host stations or booths where businesses have representatives to answer questions and scout for new talent. There will be presentations throughout the event. They may be in the form of seminars or panel speakers. These presentations can be very beneficial for gaining insight into a particular business or industry, so note your areas of interest and schedule your day.

Most career fairs won’t end with you having a firm job offer, so don’t get your hopes too high. Rather, these fairs are an opportunity to learn from leaders in your field, and form relationships to help further your career. This may come in the form of a future employer, business partner or mentor. To ensure you’re putting your best foot forward, make sure you’ve appropriately prepared for the career fair.

The Harm

Though there can be splendid opportunities found at career fairs, not all fairs are created equal. Some fairs may truly be a waste of your time. With the dawn of the Internet age, talent scouting, recruitment and job hunting have become more and more accessible without the need to attend a fair.

Attending a career fair with little opportunity or participation will be a waste of your time. You may end up walking away with nothing more than a bag full of branded pens and notepads. If businesses aren’t really invested in hiring (and are taking part out of obligation), you may end up being endlessly directed to filling out online applications. That’s not a position you want to put yourself in, your time is valuable!

Check out Workopolis’ guide to the best career fairs in Canada to help you pick out the fairs worth attending.

Virtual Fairs

While not a solid replacement for a face-to-face, virtual fairs offer some advantages.  Since CoVID-19 has changed much of the business world, virtual fairs are currently trending. Some platforms have launched specifically from CoVID-19, but others existed prior to the pandemic and should be considered as more reputable options.

When considering a job fair, prioritize fostering relationships for the future as well as the present. You never know when you may need those connections along the way.

BCJobs Virtual Career Fairs

On May 13, the largest virtual career fair in BC was hosted by BCJobs.ca in partnership with BC Tech Association, WorkBC, and HR Tech Group. The event featured 200 attendees, including 15 moderators and company representatives from 9 organizations. Follow our Meetup Group and Eventbrite Page to be notified of the next virtual career fair.

Click below to learn more about our virtual career fairs.

• Virtual Career Fair – May 13th – Virtual Tech Talent Day
• BC Jobs: Hosts 1st Virtual Marketing Career Fair

About the Author

Simon Chou is the Vice President of Operations and Growth at BCjobs.ca. Over the course of his career, he carved a niche in brand development,  marketing strategy, and online presence for startups. Prior to BC Jobs, he served as a marketing advisor for high-profile blockchain projects including Litecoin, NEM, and Ripple. He’s also worked with fortune 500 companies in the healthcare space.

The post What Are Career Fairs: Are They Worth It? appeared first on BC Jobs Blog.

Case in point, I just came back from the Yukon. As an HR consultant and immigration specialist, I travel fairly frequently to present on various business-related topics and, in turn, to learn about the challenges and solutions of others. Most recently, that led me to facilitate a workshop on strategic recruitment in Canada’s true North.

What we touched upon on were the similarities and differences for employers in more rural parts of the country compared to their urban counterparts. Where we focused though was on strategy. While every geography and industry comes with its own challenges and opportunities, the strategic approach to recruitment remains a common success driver.

Authenticity Defines the Right “Fit”

Higher volumes of applicants willing to relocate from afar are not the ultimate benchmark of a recruiting strategy’s success; more key is the ability to identify those who want to be there and are motivated to perform.

Employers and candidates alike are always looking for the right “fit”. The key for employers is to be authentic, informed and involved. Creating a great recruitment strategy starts with understanding the organization and its business goals.

The employer needs to be clear about its company culture in order to know how to present itself to the right individuals; your culture is a living brand and plays an important part of this equation. It, therefore, also pays dividends to listen to the front lines and managers within your organization to gain even greater clarity—and better, lasting results.

Systematic Thinking vs. Systemic Failure

Hiring and retention requires a systematic way of thinking. Employers should always be in hiring mode; interestingly, successful recruitment correlates to effective retention and provides a strategic pool for succession potential.

Similarly, a failure to hire or retain might also be viewed in a systemic light. Business leaders need to participate and remain invested in evolving and fine-tuning their internal processes. After all, beyond the initial hiring and honeymoon period, there is the full career cycle to be considered.

Retention Built By Leadership (Some Assembly Required)

Those who think their job is finished when the applicant becomes an employee are missing the due diligence and opportunity. This is when everything is just getting started. Bringing the best and brightest into the organization is not enough if there is not a structure to support the rest of the employment experience.

In addition to bringing in the right people, maintaining the conditions in which they will thrive is essential. Employees need accurate job descriptions, onboarding, and ongoing feedback. These HR tools do not have to be complicated or time-consuming, but they need to exist in some form to maintain ongoing employment engagement—the key to productivity and profitability. (Tramadol)

Otherwise, the cost of bad hires or constant turnover is the price to be paid, along with further searching for the right fit.

Ongoing Recruitment Anchored in Relationships

Ownership in any business requires a connection and partnership with your employees beyond paystubs and approvals. Creating ongoing touch points for dialogue and feedback ensures engagement and retention remain high.

While this strategic approach brings with it changes to both the hiring and management systems currently in place, it also brings different results.

When specifically applied to hiring, it means that “recruiting” never stops, but is far more likely to be addressing growth than attrition issues. This is how to strategically recruit and grow your business from within.

Read more about Amelia’s fascinating experience travelling to the Yukon to speak about recruitment strategies for HRMA.

The post How to Succeed with Strategic Recruitment? Never Stop. appeared first on BC Jobs Blog.

Googling “best HR blogs”, or “best recruiting advice websites” brings up page after page of top 10’s and curated lists… All of them featuring predominantly American or UK based blogs.

Unfortunately, there simply aren’t a lot of Canadian blogs out there (relatively speaking), let alone Canadian blogs specifically geared towards HR.

But, what we lack in quantity, we make up for in quality!

I love Canadian blogs, especially the ones on this list:

BCjobs.ca’s Top 7 Canadian HR and Recruiting Blogs

HRVoice

HRVoice is HRMA’s online information centre.

This blog is a must read if you want to keep your finger on the pulse of Canadian human resources. They also post articles written by respected HR professionals.

Check out Effective Communications and HR: Making the Connections.

HR Inner Circle

Who doesn’t want to be part of an inner circle!?

HR Inner Circle shares articles from a variety of different sources with a focus on human resources news, ideas, and innovations.

Check out The 4 Imperatives of Implementing a Sound Workplace Wellness Strategy.

Randstad Canada Blog

Covering topics for both ends of the hiring spectrum, Randstad’s blog covers a wide range of topics.

You’ll find articles written for employers, recruiters, the HR department, and jobseekers, but what really sets Randstad apart is their special attention to women in the workplace.

Their series, Women Shaping Business, is a wonderful resource for women and anyone looking to promote diversity in the workplace.

From one of Randstad’s Surveys

HRM Online

Dedicated to covering human resources news, opinion and analysis, HRM Online is pretty old school in their presentation. Their site resembles newspapers and print journals and the articles they publish are more formal in tone and delivery than typical blogs.

Personally, I find this approach refreshing and always feel smarter after paying HRM Online a visit.

Check out Preparing For a Less-Loyal Workforce.

Plugged In Recruiter

This lovely blog is full of wisdom straight from HR expert Susan Wright-Boucher herself.

Susan’s writing is a pleasure to read, and her knowledge is evidenced in every one of her articles! This blog is a personal favorite for sure.

Check out 5 Tips For Writing Insanely Good Job Ads.

Talent At Work

This is by far the prettiest blog on the list!

Talent At Work is run by Goldbeck Recruiting Inc., the blog focuses on recruiting and HR with a healthy dose of business advice and inspiration.

They also publish informative reports about the Canadian recruiting and workforce landscape that are definitely worth a read.

Check out Fall Hiring Extravaganza: 45% More Job Postings in First Week of September.

Open View Labs Blog

This blog isn’t technically a blog, but it is full of helpful advice for anyone looking to grow their organization.

The “recruiting resources” section of Open View Labs shares articles about hiring best practices, recruiting tips, and information about retention.

Check out The 3 Worst Hiring Mistakes Startups Make.

We won’t be so cheeky as to include the BCjobs HR Advice blog in this list, but we hope you’ll consider us!

These are our favorites, we would love to hear about the blogs that you love. Please tweet us @HRAdvice or post them on the BCjobs.ca Facebook Page. BCjobs.ca Facebook Page.

The post The Best of Canadian HR and Recruitment Blogs appeared first on BC Jobs Blog.

This new generation of workers brings with it a shift in the nature of the workplace and in particular, how the workplace is managed.

Millennial employees are not all that different from boomers.

A recent article in Forbes, How Millennials Work Differently From Everyone Else, shows that the two generations are really not all that different.

Both value good communication, hard work, and advancement. Millennials just have a different approach and understanding of these values.

Millennials are more flexible about communication, productivity, feedback, and work structure. To manage them, it is important to understand how to work with their desire for flexibility, not against it.

Effective communication doesn’t have to be face-to-face.

Yes face-time is important, but many millennials find FaceTime to be just as good. A 2013 study of Gen Y executives conducted by Cisco found that 87% of them believe video has a significantly positive impact on an organization.

Millennials also tend to use texting, and email as a major part of daily workplace interactions.

A more flexible approach to communication is an important part of keeping younger team members engaged, and on the same page.

Effective feedback doesn’t have to be structured.

The annual performance review is antiquated. Millennials want your feedback, they thrive on it, but they want that feedback in real time.

Instead of pre-scheduled formal reviews, provide constructive criticism in the moment. This will encourage constant learning. Also make sure to provide positive feedback to encourage employees to keep working hard.

When or where work gets done doesn’t matter, so long as it gets done.

Millennials place significantly less emphasis on structured working arrangements and hours than boomers.

But the lack of structure does not seem to affect their productivity. The opposite may actually be true.

According to Gallup’s State of the American Workplace, remote workers log more hours and are more engaged.

Offering flexible work options is a way to improve retention and employee satisfaction. It is also a powerful recruiting tool for attracting Gen Y candidates.

Being rigid with technology is a no win situation.

Millennials are going to use Facebook at work. And Twitter. And Instagram.

So you should ban social media at work right?

Not necessarily.

Taking short breaks to check out social media throughout the day can lower stress levels, and boost creativity.

A recent study on social media in the workplace by Evolv showed that workers who visited 5 or more social networks during their work day boasted higher sales than their less socially active peers.

Creating rigid social media policies won’t do much to prevent its use, and makes you less appealing to millennial candidates.

Instead, try having an open dialogue about the personal use of social networks, what is okay, what isn’t, and trust your employees to know the difference.

You may even be able to capitalize on your millennial employee’s social media know how by getting them to help you grow your online brand.

If all else fails, try company yoga. It works for Lululemon!

The post How Millennials Work: Why the Key to Managing Millennials is Flexibility appeared first on BC Jobs Blog.

But did you know that all of this can also be said about social recruiting?

Recruiters are now reporting that social media comes in just below referrals as a source of quality hires.  A third of recruiters report that using social recruiting has improved both the quantity and quality of the candidates they hire.

Mixing a little social into your referral program will increase its effectiveness and reach because you can harness your employees’ social networks to work in tandem with your own.

Here’s how you can mix social media with referrals to bring your hiring strategy to the next level

Leverage Your Employees Social Network

Your employees are connected. They are connected via Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Google Plus, and the list goes on!

You can make their connectedness work for you by encouraging them to share the jobs you post with their social networks. Many tools even have automated sharing options to help you facilitate this for your staff.

Educating and assisting your staff to use social media when participating in your company’s referral program and you’ll gain greater access to higher quality candidates.

Teach your staff to fish… For very specific fish

You can teach your employees to use Facebook Graph Search to search their network for the type of candidate who best fits your specific job requirements.

Also teach them about how to best use these channels, give them examples of the kinds of messages they can send out, tips on how to get people excited about the idea of working you’re your company, and show them how to use tools like hashtags, so that when they share the jobs you’ve posted on BC Jobs with their Twitter accounts, those shares are searchable.

Educating employees about these tricks will help them leverage their own social networks’ data to help them get the word out, and even jar their memories about forgotten connections who would make ideal hires.

Reward a job well done

If you want your staff to put in the time and effort to send quality candidates your way, you have to give them something in return.

50% of workers report that incentives are what motivate them to take part in company referral programs.

Keep in mind; it’s important to reward the effort as well as the results. Thankfully, social media actually makes this a lot easier!

You can easily track which employees are the most active in sharing your job posts and offer rewards based on this activity. Small gift cards given to staff members, who share the most job posts on their Facebook Page, or hit a similar kind of goal, make great incentives. Then offer larger rewards for employees whenever one of their recommendations is hired.

Getting employees on board with your recruiting efforts through a socially optimized referral program is one of the best ways you can improve your hiring process, engage your current employees, and snag the best talent on the market!

The post Boost Your Hiring Success with this Effective Combination appeared first on BC Jobs Blog.

The shift towards a labor market comprised of younger candidates requires a shift in recruiting strategy.

This generation of candidate has very different expectations of their potential employer than the generations before them had. Traditional recruiting methods simply aren’t enough to win the war for millennial talent.

Here are 3 things you can do to attract, engage, and recruit millennials:

Make your recruiting social

Millennials use social media for everything, including their job search. In fact 83% of millennials reported using Facebook to look for work in 2013 (Jobvite). This is why social recruiting is one of the best ways to reach younger talent.

To get started with social recruiting you will need to build a presence on at least one social platform. As Facebook is the number one choice for millennial job seekers I suggest you start by using a recruiting app to create a career section on your company Facebook Page. Twitter is another excellent social platform for recruiting millennials. You can use Twitter to share the jobs you post on your company Facebook Page to get your post seen by more potential hires. Use tags like #hiring and #recruiting to make your job posts searchable. It is also a good idea to include a location in your job Tweet.

Check out Jobcast for an effective Facebook recruiting app and TweetMyJobs to help improve your Twitter recruiting.

Make your recruiting mobile

Millennial job seekers expect to be able to connect with potential employers via mobile. In fact approximately 77% of job seekers reported using mobile to look for work in 2013 and most of the job seekers who reported doing so were millennials. This is why not having a mobile friendly career site is huge problem for employers looking to attract younger candidates.

In order to make your recruiting more mobile you can either re-structure your career site so that it is mobile friendly and responsive (works on a wide assortment of devices), or you can use the social recruiting strategies mentioned above. Having a Facebook and Twitter presence means you also have a mobile presence and, if you have a Facebook career section, the jobs you post there will also be visible via mobile device.

Appeal to millennial’s values

Surprisingly salary rates significantly lower on millennials’ list of work life values than it does for boomers. The potential to progress and grow with a company is much more important to millennials than the promise of a high salary. They also value flexible working arrangements and hours, training and development programs, and a company culture that is in line with their own values.

To better attract millennials you should highlight the aspects of your company culture that reflect these values. If, for example, your company offers excellent training opportunities and provides employees with flexible work options, you should be sure to highlight this in all of your job posts, in your interactions with potential hires, and in all of the content you share via social media and job boards.

There are many more ways to appeal to millennials, but these three techniques are extremely effective and should serve you well to start. For more detailed information about millennial candidates you can check out this survey by PWC.

The post 3 Effective Ways to Recruit Millennials appeared first on BC Jobs Blog.