A successful company is built on a foundation of different key pillars, among which employees are one of the most important. Employees are the driving force behind your company’s operations. Hence, finding the right talents for your company is crucial for long-term business success.
Your hiring process — is it the best?
As an employer, you may be familiar with the steps of the recruitment process. Whenever there’s a need to fill roles within your company, first you put job postings via job boards or portals. Next, you wait for the applications to roll in. Then, based on the applications you’ve received, you shortlist and call up potential candidates for an interview.
As a whole, the conventional hiring process is not exactly rocket science. It’s simple and logical, and many other employers are doing the same thing. However, if you’re looking to hire for important roles within your company within a targeted time frame, there are three questions that you need to ask yourself:
- How long should you wait for the right candidates to apply?
- Is your talent selection limited to the pool of applicants?
- Is there a better way to get quality hires?
If you’re looking for more than a time-consuming, limiting and passive way of hiring, now is the time to re-strategise.
Recruitment vs Talent acquisition
Generally, recruitment refers to the process an employer undertakes to fill the open positions within the company, such as someone vacating a role in the company or when the business requires someone with a specific skillset that’s necessary for the company to move forward.
While often the norm for many companies, adopting such a reactionary hiring practice demonstrates a lack of foresight and passiveness in determining the future success of the company.
In contrast, talent acquisition is a more flexible and dynamic approach to hiring backed by a broad understanding of your long-term strategic business goals. Although it is similar to recruitment in the sense that it shares the same aim of finding the best people to work for your company, talent acquisition is a proactive approach to hiring.
Benefits of talent acquisition
Having an effective talent acquisition strategy gives companies the opportunity to attract the most talented and skilled employees available on the market, which contributes to the improvement of the company’s business performance and results. This means that you’re not just hiring someone to fill a position and do a job. These are some of the benefits:
1. Lands the right talent
An effective talent acquisition strategy focuses on finding the best candidate for the job rather than filling open positions as soon as possible. The most suitable person gets hired.
2. Gives your company the edge
Having the right talent value adds to your business operations which gives your company an edge in market competitiveness.
3. Saves time and money
Recruiting processes can be costly as it includes many tasks like job advertising, CV screening, candidate assessment and interviewing, among others. However, if your objective is to hire the right talent for the long term, the costs will be justified.
4. Prepares for the long-term
One of the most important aspects of talent acquisition is that it is forward-looking. This strategic approach ensures that the people you’re hiring have the potential to develop into leaders.
Don’t wait for talents to apply
Hoping your ideal candidate discovers your job posting, or is even in the midst of looking for a new job when you post, is to depend on sheer luck. Going by the usual wait-and-see approach, there’s a high chance that you might still receive plenty of applicants. However, there’s also the possibility that only a small percentage of them will be the right candidates.
So, instead of waiting, why not take a more proactive approach by inviting potential candidates to apply for the job you posted? On top of having more control over the kind of talent that you want onboard your company, it also speeds up your hiring process.
The question is: How and where do you start your talent search?
The platform for talent search
With the digitalisation of the hiring process in Singapore, most employers would tap on various jobs portals to post job roles that they’re looking to fill. Some jobs portals may offer more advanced features, and one of the few that have an in-built talent search tool is the MyCareersFuture (MCF) portal.
Employers who are using the MCF portal can search for the right talent from among thousands of jobseekers using the portal. The Talent Search tool is specially designed to be user-friendly: you simply type in keywords such as job titles or skills into the search bar, and a list of relevant candidate matches will be shown. Then, all you need to do is to identify the ones you would like to invite to apply for your job posting.
Here’s how to find suitable talents on MyCareersFuture:
Step 1:
After logging in to the portal with your Singpass, click on ‘Talent Search’ located on the left side of the page.
Step 2:
Type in the keywords relevant to the talent you’re looking for in the search bar (e.g. ‘product manager’) and click the ‘Search’ button.
Step 3:
Browse the list of candidates, and once you’ve identified the talent(s) that you’re keen on, click on the ‘Invite to Apply’ button.
Step 4:
Select the relevant job that you would like to invite the talent to apply for and click ‘Send’. An email notification will then be sent to the talent, informing them that you’ve invited them to apply for a job.
To further aid employers in getting the best candidates to fill up roles within their companies, the MCF portal also enables you to add up to three screening questions to your job posts, which will then be mandatory for jobseekers to answer when applying for that job. This will help employers sort through applicants more efficiently.
Leverage on advanced technology for the best talents
Whether you’re managing a large or small company, improving your recruitment process will go a long way for long-term company success. Thankfully, with an advanced jobs portal such as MyCareersFuture, building an effective talent acquisition strategy is possible even with limited resources. Try the Talent Search tool and good luck with your hiring!
