Maximizing Your Candidate Funnel: Tips and Tricks

Having a strong candidate funnel is an essential part of any successful recruitment strategy. It helps companies identify top talent from a pool of candidates and narrow and streamline throughout the hiring process. However, as the funnel narrows, not all candidates will make it through to the end. That’s why it’s crucial to have a robust recruitment process to maximize your candidate pool, keep those in the pipeline engaged, and ensure you hire the right individual for the job.

According to a CareerBuilder survey, 74% of hiring managers say they hired the wrong person for a position. A strong candidate funnel can minimize this risk by providing a larger pool of qualified candidates. The following are some tips and tricks you can use to maximize your candidate funnel and attract the most qualified candidates to your company. 

 Candidate funnel: Why it is critical to your hiring strategy

The candidate funnel, also known as the recruitment funnel, illustrates the stages of the hiring process a job candidate passes through, from initial awareness of a job opening to being hired. These stages include:

• Awareness: The stage where potential candidates become aware of a job opening, often through job postings, social media, or referrals.
• Interest: The stage where candidates show interest in the job and the company, often by submitting their resume or application.
• Evaluation: This is where the candidate is evaluated and screened for qualifications, skills, and fit with the company culture.
• Interview: In this step, the candidate is invited to interview, either in person, over the phone, or through videoconferencing.
• Offer: In this stage, the company makes an offer to the candidate, including salary, benefits, and other incentives.
• Hire: The final step is where the candidate accepts the offer and becomes an employee.

Tips for building and managing your talent pipeline

• Develop effective personas for difficult-to-fill positions. A candidate persona is like a character profile for the right candidate. It’s a 360-degree analysis of your ideal candidate’s skills, experiences, and cultural fit. By understanding your target candidates’ career aspirations, motivations, and social channels, you can craft a compelling pitch that appeals to both active and passive job seekers. With a well-defined candidate persona, you can streamline your recruitment efforts and attract suitable candidates for your organization.
• Create an exceptional candidate experience from application to hire. Maintaining a positive candidate experience is vital even when an applicant is not hired. A successful candidate experience can lead to a healthy talent pool and positive word-of-mouth, even from rejected candidates. A successful hiring process not only results in the selection of the right candidate but also leaves all applicants feeling valued and respected. 
• Design targeted ads to reach a wider audience. Cast your net far and wide! In today’s digital age, you can explore many different ways to get the word out about your job opening. Social media platforms like Facebook and search engines like Google offer powerful tools to help you reach a wider audience of potential candidates. By creating targeted ads tailored to specific demographics and interests, you can maximize your exposure to the talent you seek. LinkedIn can also help you fill your candidate funnel by providing access to many professionals with diverse skills and experiences. LinkedIn says 90% of recruiters use the platform to find and vet candidates. And what’s more impressive is that 8 people are hired every minute on LinkedIn.
• Establish a clear and consistent brand identity. Establishing brand recognition is the first step to attracting top talent. A familiar name and logo can set your organization apart from others and increase job seekers’ clickthrough rates. Research indicates that most candidates conduct research before applying to a company, and first impressions matter. So, craft a compelling message about your company and the type of employees you want to attract by adjusting your brand messaging on career pages, social media, and job boards. 
• Leverage employee referral programs to bring new candidates into the funnel. Develop a successful employee referral program that incentivizes current employees to refer qualified candidates. You can tap into a wider pool of potential hires and increase the likelihood of finding candidates who fit your company culture well if they are brought in by people who are already familiar with your organization. Additionally, referrals tend to have a higher retention rate than candidates hired through other channels.
• Measuring up: Using metrics to optimize your recruitment funnel. Metrics are your roadmap to a successful recruitment funnel. By tracking essential factors like time to hire, cost per hire, and quality of employment, you can optimize and refine your process to attract the highest-quality candidates.

Although building an effective recruitment funnel may seem challenging, you can use the practical tips provided here to improve your process, widen your funnel, and help you place the best candidate in the position. By attracting a larger pool of qualified candidates, you can improve interview outcomes, shorten hiring time, and boost the quality of your new hires.

Take the guesswork out of your hiring and recruitment strategy. Let InVista help.