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Welcome to The Full Desk Experience, a podcast for leaders in the staffing and recruiting industry. Hosted by Kortney Harmon, Director of Industry Relations at Crelate, this show is designed to provide insights and tips from a highly knowledgeable consultant in the field.
Join us live (or catch the replay) in our Workshop series, where Kortney delivers expert advice and actionable tips for you to take to your firms immediately.
In the Industry Spotlight series, Kortney interviews industry experts and leaders, highlighting their journeys to success and key insights into the staffing and recruiting industry.
Don't have an hour to dedicate to a podcast? Listen in to our FDE Express - where you'll get quick-hit insights and tips in 10 minutes or less.
With new episodes dropping weekly, this is the perfect opportunity to stay up-to-date on the latest trends and best practices in the industry. Don't miss out - join us for The Full Desk Experience today! If you'd like to attend the live session, be sure to visit our website for more information.
Kortney Harmon [00:00:00]:
Mine your own database. It is the goldmine. Your database is your treasure trove of talent. But let's be honest, be real with yourself. It's probably a mess. Your teams are inputting minimal information, leading to a vicious cycle of starting from scratch, returning to the well with every new job order. It's Groundhog Day, and not in a fun bill Murray kind of way. What strategies are you implementing? Processes and tools are you using to clean up and enrich your data? Set up regular check ins with past candidates? Using automations to help create a talent nurture program that keeps silver medalists engaged.
Kortney Harmon [00:00:44]:
Your next great hire is probably already in your system.
Kortney Harmon [00:00:49]:
Hi, I'm Kortney Harman, director of industry relations at Crelate. Welcome to FDE Express, a short, sweet format of the full Desk Experience, a curlate original podcast. We'll be diving into specific topics to show you how you grow your firm within ten minutes or less. Each episode will cover quick hit topics to give you inspiration and food for thought for your talent. Businesses.
Kortney Harmon [00:01:20]:
Welcome back, listeners, to the full desk experience, the podcast for all things staffing and recruiting. I'm your host, Kortney Harmon. Bear with me. It's me. I am finally starting to get my voice back after a few weeks off with pneumonia. I promise I'm going to make it short and to the point. Today we're diving headfirst today into the future of our industry with NFD Express. We're talking about short sourcing strategies for 2025 and really navigating the talent maze.
Kortney Harmon [00:01:51]:
But today we're not just talking about the future. We're talking about the strategies, processes and tools to shape it. So let's kick things off with a reality check. By 2030, we could be facing a global talent shortage of over 85 million people. That's 8.5 trillion unrealized annual revenues, folks. But here's the kicker. It's not just a 2030 problem. It is happening right now.
Kortney Harmon [00:02:24]:
So you may be having this lingering in your mind. What do I do? Or more importantly, how do we tackle this talent crunch? So I'm going to give you four supercharged strategies that's going to boost your sourcing efforts. So let's get real and solve this problem before it gets bigger. Number one today, be real with yourself. Give your job descriptions some serious love. Let's face it, most of the job descriptions written in our industry are about as exciting to watch as paint to dry. They're often written by HR, who may not fully understand the job or churned out by AI due to lazy prompting with all its appeal of a technical manual, when it's outputted, it's time to really sit and understand what we're putting out to our audiences. It's time to flip the script.
Kortney Harmon [00:03:20]:
Your job descriptions are your bait, and right now you are fishing with stale bread when you could be using gourmet cheese. Don't tell my husband I said fishing with cheese. Ignore that. So we need to really seriously think of all of our output that is going out for those job descriptions, rewriting those with the job seeker in mind. Showcasing the roles impact the team's culture, the growth opportunities, who this person will become. At the end of this job, you have to use language that resonates with your ideal candidates. Remember, you're not just filling a position, you're selling a career move. Now, there are times that we need bodies, and I understand that we're going to be able to reach that audience at a different place.
Kortney Harmon [00:04:05]:
Which leads me to number two. I need you to think about meeting your candidates where they are. If you're still solely relying on LinkedIn and job boards, you're missing out on an ocean of talent. It's time to really think about diversifying your talent pools. Are you showing up at industry trade shows? Boost in person or virtual events for job fairs? What about tapping into TikTok for younger talent? Facebook groups for industry specialties? I'm going to say this, and you're going to think I'm crazy, but what about Reddit forums? They're gold mines for niche skills. The future of sourcing is omnichannel. Be everywhere. Your ideal candidates are sometimes before they even know their candidates.
Kortney Harmon [00:04:54]:
So think omnichannel number three. And I say this, and it's not just because I work at curleat. This is something I have said for many, many years in the industry, 15 plus. And I have seen so many organizations fail at this mine. Your own database. It is the goldmine. Your database is your treasure trove of talent. But let's be honest, be real with yourself.
Kortney Harmon [00:05:19]:
It's probably a mess. Your teams are inputting minimal information, leading to a vicious cycle of starting from scratch, returning to the well with every new job order. It's Groundhog day, and not in a fun bill Murray kind of way. We need to think about breaking the cycle. You, as an operations leader or an executive in your agency or firm, what strategies are you implementing? Processes and tools are you using to clean up and enrich your data? Set up regular check ins with past candidates? Using automations to help create a talent nurture program that keeps silver medalists engaged. Your next great hire is probably already in your system. You just need to find them. It comes down to speed and timing in our industry, so be honest with yourself.
Kortney Harmon [00:06:13]:
When is the last time you did a missing phone number or missing email field in your system search and you had your teams update and clean that data? It is time to do it now. And number four, references. It is absolutely your one stop shop to get out of the hamster wheel. Here's the hard you're leaving money on the table by not leveraging references effectively. At bare minimum, you should have automated systems like ours asking candidates who else they'd love to work with. These are your must know candidates, folks. And you don't have to ask in a way that is requiring something of them. Give me their contact information.
Kortney Harmon [00:07:00]:
Let's face it, we're all super detectives. But who would you like to work on with on the next team that you're working on? Who is a must know resource that you want to have by your side? Take it a step further. After every successful placement, reach out to the candidates references. Likely they're going to be in a similar role and they could be your next superstar placement. That's how you break out of the job board bubble and tap into that hidden job market of talented. But it comes at an uncomfortable rate of doing tasks you might not have placed in your planner for the day. Because there are so many things to do. Because we're in reactive mode, you have to make time for these references and referrals to take it one step further to get candidates outside of that hamster wheel.
Kortney Harmon [00:07:53]:
Let's talk AI for a minute. In this world of AIH, 72% of staffing pros believe that AI will positively impact their business in the next three to five years. It's not here to replace us. It's here to give us superpowers. It's here to make us move faster, be aware of data in our system that we haven't had forefront of our mind because we're too busy working our desk, too busy in the trenches. If we use AIh in the best of our abilities, that's built into our systems, that's giving us real recruiter intelligence of our data that we have in hand. You are going to supercharge yourself. You're going to identify passive candidates most likely to be open to opportunities.
Kortney Harmon [00:08:37]:
You're going to be able to personalize those outreaches at scale. You're going to be able to use prediction and skill gaps and data and just help you overall, move faster and have more awareness. But remember, with all of this tech, the human touch really becomes more crucial than ever. In the world of automation, genuine relationships are truly your secret weapon. High impact touches versus low volume touches. Personalized video outreach. Handwritten notes make a difference? Yes. Really? I said handwritten notes.
Kortney Harmon [00:09:13]:
I have them on my desk personally that I send out. Maybe informal coffee chats. Virtual in person, you have to do the things for your candidates to go the extra mile and really show that you're invested. So as we look into 2025, the world of sourcing and recruiting is evolving. Breakneck speeds. But armed with these strategies, you're not only going to be ready for the future, you're going to be shaping it. You're going to be prepared. You're going to be proactive.
Kortney Harmon [00:09:42]:
So as you go into 2025, make it your mission to change your candidate experience. Craft better job descriptions that sizzle. Be where your candidates are. Get out of that comfort zone. Go to an industry trade show, virtual event in person. Check out a Reddit forum. Try your hand at TikTok if that's where your audience is, turn your database into your goldmine and leverage references and referrals like a pro. You do these four things, and I want you to watch your sourcing efforts supercharge.
Kortney Harmon [00:10:16]:
Here's to the future of sourcing. May your pipelines be ever full and your placements be ever perfect. There you have it, folks. Roadmap for 2025 and beyond. It's back to the basics. It's really being heads down, making sure that we are doing anything and everything we can. I am so pumped about the future of our industry. Sure, there's going to be challenges ahead, but with all these strategies, we're not surviving.
Kortney Harmon [00:10:41]:
We're thriving, and we're changing up our processes and how our agencies work. So before we wrap up, I want to give a huge thank you to our listeners. Thank you for your support and engagement, making the full desk experience possible. If you found value in these strategies, don't just keep them to yourself. Share this podcast in this episode with your colleagues. You got questions or you want to hear about additional topics, reach out to fulldesk@crelate.com. until next time, reminding you to keep your desk full, your pipeline flowing. Happy hunting, and we'll catch you next episode of the full Desk experience.
Kortney Harmon [00:11:18]:
That's all for today's episode of FDE Express. I'm Kortney Harmon with Crelate. If you have any questions or topics you'd like for us to cover in future episodes. Please feel free to submit them to fulldesk@crelate.com or ask us live next session. And don't forget to subscribe to our podcast wherever you listen, and sign up for our monthly events to keep learning and growing your business. Thanks for tuning in to FDE Express, a short and sweet format of the full desk experience. We'll see you next time.