Traditional recruiting is becoming a thing of the past. In fact, approximately 79% of HR professionals have now replaced traditional recruiting methods with online recruiting tools. With COVID-19, these tools and strategies are required for recruiters to identify, attract, and retain top talent.

By and large, that’s a positive for recruiters, as they can now find, research, and contact a wider pool of potential talent in less time. But it’s not all good news—if it’s easier for recruiters to find potential candidates, it’s also easier for candidates to find potential roles. Things get even more complicated when remote work is added to the equation.

Taken together, these and other challenges boil down to a single question: How can recruiters compete in a digital age that offers talented candidates more choice than ever before?

Present a Positive Image of Your Organization.

Talented candidates with in-demand skills can afford to be more selective when choosing who to work for. So if you want the best, you have to be the best.

What does this mean for employers? For starters, it means you need to offer competitive benefits. These may include:

  • Great health care
  • Generous vacation allowance
  • Generous parental leave (it’s not just maternity leave anymore—paternity leave is becoming increasingly popular)
  • A modern, comfortable, and well-equipped workspace
  • Flexible working hours/remote options
  • Profit-sharing
  • Funding for training and equipment, and autonomy for employees to choose how it’s spent

You also need to present your organization—and its benefits—in the right way. Avoid the generic phrases that appear in countless job descriptions, such as, “A fun and creative place to work” or, “Great career development opportunities.” They carry little weight, and most candidates know it.

The best recruiters provide more exhaustive and transparent insights into their organization. Take a look at how digital agency Distilled presents itself to candidates. Photos and employee testimonials are used to openly depict company culture. (Many organizations are using video for this purpose now, too.) If people genuinely value your company and enjoy working there, it will show.

Understand How Candidates Research Roles.

When deciding whether to apply for, or accept, a role, today’s job-hunter typically draws on multiple sources of information. They’ll rarely rely solely on the potentially-biased content of a job description and a “Why work for us” page.

Glassdoor reviews and social media profiles (both the company’s and its staff’s) offer insights candidates are unlikely to glean directly from recruiters. Using these and other resources, they’re able to read first-hand accounts of employees’ experiences within the organization and gauge telling metrics such as staff turnover rates for themselves.

While you can’t control these mediums, you can steer the narrative. Ensure your employees are satisfied and ask them to write reviews, in addition to participating in brand activism on social media.