Where have all the qualified job candidates gone?

Where have all the qualified job candidates gone? And more importantly, how can we find, attract and retain them?

Those might be the biggest questions on most HR leaders’ minds for the last 18 months. In fact, when one HR pro asked those questions recently at an industry conference session, the other 400 attendees cheered, clapped and woo-hooed in support.

So where are the candidates? Some decided to leave the workforce entirely. Others took on new jobs that aligned better with their career and income goals. Some scaled back at work to get better aligned with priorities outside of work – such as retirement, caregiving or stress reduction.

The current labor market may feel difficult to navigate, but it’s not impossible. Qualified job candidates are out there. You just might need to tweak recruiting strategies to find them – or help them find you.

Even better, HR pros and their hiring teams shouldn’t have to shoulder the effort to find qualified job candidates alone. Almost 85% of talent leaders say hiring right is a business-level priority – not just their priority – according to the Lighthouse Research & Advisory 2022 Talent Acquisition Trends study.

“The market conditions and general scarcity of talent are making {HR pros’} jobs harder than ever,” says Lighthouse Chief Research Officer Ben Eubanks. “Plus, the jobs data indicate that postings for recruiters are five times what they were pre-pandemic, which means companies can’t find enough recruiting talent to help them solve this problem.”

Here are four research-based and best-in-class practices you’ll want to try to find qualified job candidates – then hire and retain them.

Tighten up job descriptions

In many cases, companies are losing great candidates with their job descriptions. Qualified job candidates overlook good-fit positions because they don’t understand what the company is looking for.

Nearly three quarters of workers considered applying for a different job in the last 18 months, but almost 20% didn’t bother because the job description was vague or confusing, according to Eightfold AI’s 2022 Talent Survey.

The deepest roots of confusion: Job candidates’ experiences didn’t directly line up with what was described or the job description itself was unclear.

HR and recruiting pros might be limited on fixing the first part of the confusion: You probably can’t write job descriptions with every potential candidate’s experience in mind. Nor can you interpret how candidates will see their experiences lining up with you.

But you can fix the second part: Write clear job descriptions. Here are four tips on clarity:

• Stick to standard titles. It sounds boring, but Indeed researchers found targeted job titles are more effective than generic or catchy titles. Most candidates search for jobs using the title they have or are looking for.
• Keep it short. More words and deep descriptions don’t sell jobs. Hit key aspects that will attract people to the role. Ask employees in the role what drew them to the job and make their language your language.
• Make it compelling. Create a brief section on “what’s cool about this job.” Fill in the blank with current employees’ exact words. Also, include core values and competencies (not rigid skills) for success.
• Be original. Think about the skills essential for solving the most common problems someone in the role faces. Focus on those rather than a long list of requirements for applying.

Consider an RPO approach

Many HR pros find more success in hiring qualified job candidates by partnering with a recruitment process outsourcing (RPO) provider to transfer all or part of their hiring.

Companies with higher retention rates, employee engagement levels and revenue are twice as likely to have used an RPO to fulfill their recruitment needs, according to the Lighthouse survey.

But in most cases with an RPO, HR never becomes totally disengaged from the recruiting process. Instead, HR pros – across industries and company sizes – that have had success going the RPO-route say these are the critical elements to make it work:

• Innovation that addresses unique company challenges. HR pros need RPOs that create recruiting and hiring strategies specific to their issues – whether that’s filling higher level roles, finding culture fits, increasing remote staff or building attractive compensation plans
• Alignment with business priorities. As more companies make hiring a business priority, they need a recruitment strategy and partner that merges hiring and business goals, and
• Technology expertise. HR wants RPO partners that can offer the technology that helps them plan, analyze and demonstrate the value of talent management. They also regularly review the success of the recruitment strategy and adjust as needed.

Look for adjacent skills

Some qualified job candidates are outside of reach because HR pros and hiring managers look for a specific number of matching skills for the role. Or they require a degree, certification or certain number of years of experience.

You might find more qualified job candidates by looking more closely at adjacent skills, rather than specific skills, the Eightfold researchers suggest.

For instance, if you need to fill a marketing role, you might evaluate candidates’ aptitude in areas such as communication, social media, public relations and project strategy. Community managers are also skilled in those areas, but might not come up as ideal candidates because their other skills – event planning, public speaking and customer service – are used more often and usually more prominent in their applications.

Try to make a chart with a role’s key skills and aptitudes. Work with your team and/or hiring managers to identify other roles and positions that share a percentage of those. Then market job openings to those groups, too.

Try travelers

The healthcare industry suffered some of the biggest labor shortages – even before COVID-19. To alleviate (at least some) of the strain, healthcare facilities turned to traveling nurses. In fact, the travel nursing market grew more than 35% in 2020 and 2021, experts at Staffing Industry Analysts found.

Filling employment gaps with traveling talent isn’t just for healthcare anymore. HR pros and hiring managers might find qualified job candidates by opening their minds to long-term temporary traveling staff. It’s a growing trend in the skilled labor market as more talent acquisition pros turn to travel staffing outsourcers.

HR pros don’t need to rely solely on their labor market to fill positions. And because it’s temporary staffing, you have the opportunity to offer longer-term or full-time positions to qualified traveling candidates who exceed expectations. On the other hand, you can let traveling staff who don’t work out as well as expected move on when the assignment is done.