10 Talent Acquisition Smart Goals for 2023

Today’s job seekers have high expectations that go above and beyond a competitive salary and "cool" company culture. To hire and retain as efficiently as possible, TA teams must embrace new strategies aimed at creating a better overall talent experience for candidates and employees. 
 

Here are 10 talent acquisition goals your teams can set to improve your recruitment marketing efforts in the new year:
 

1. Track recruitment KPIs to help improve ROI
 

Time to hire, applicants per hire, application completion rate, and cost per hire are all metrics every skilled recruiter keeps in mind so they can prove their ROI. If you can tie your value back to the financial ROI of the organization, you’re going to improve your strategy and feel the push to perform.
 

The simple truth? Time is money, turnover is extremely costly, and both impact your bottom line every day. A recruiter who efficiently sources a hire that stays with the company makes a stronger recruiter than one who’s focused on sheer volume.
 

2. Partner with marketing to build your employer brand
 

A company's employer brand is incredibly important. Why? You want to grow your employee base with people who align with your company’s vision and purpose.
 

When your employer brand is firmly established and accurately reflected on your career site, through email campaigns, and during recruiting events, applicants that resonate with it will come pouring in — providing phenomenal talent who turn into long-term employees.
 

The common denominator of companies with a stellar employer brand? A strong partnership between their HR and marketing teams, creating a unified force that’s focused on achieving your recruitment goals. Recruitment marketing is your first shout-out to your next employees. By collaborating with marketing-savvy colleagues across your organization, you can better target candidates, create compelling content, and hone in on the best channel for active and ongoing engagement.
 

Related resource: How Brother International Corporation Reinvented Its Employer Brand with Phenom Career Site, CMS & Hosted Apply
 

3. Nurture relationships with “silver medal” candidates 
 

Candidates who don’t make the first cut for a particular req are often a great fit for another role. Yet many recruiters are quick to move on to other opportunities without re-engaging “silver medalists” in their CRM. Big mistake.
 

These job seekers are just as valuable as the rest of your candidate pipeline. Connect with them through hyper-personalized email and SMS campaigns to keep the lines of communication open.
 

Presenting relevant opportunities by skill set, job experience, and location is a great strategy — especially if you feature dynamic content like video job descriptions and employee testimonials. 
 

4. Diversify your candidate pipeline
 

It’s important to ensure your candidate pool is diverse in terms of gender and ethnicity — the last thing you want is to lose an entire demographic off the bat with biased content. If there’s a pattern of attracting only men aged 30-35 or women aged 22-32, for example, it’s time to take a closer look at your hiring strategy and recruitment goals for 2023. 
 

But now is also the time to consider the diversity of sources for acquiring skills.  Badges, proficiency certificates, internships, and apprenticeships can provide today's job seekers with qualifications for hybrid or net-new job roles. 
 

Job descriptions and employer brand are strong indicators of who will apply to your roles. Make sure all content is unbiased and revisit goal #2 by looping in your marketing team to compose compelling content that attracts instead of ostracizes.
 

Related resource: Uncover Hidden Bias in Recruiting
 

5. Turn to internal talent pools first for accelerated hiring
 

Attraction and retention must be high on the priority list for your talent acquisition goals — especially in today's labor market. If the only focus is on getting career site traffic to jobs postings, you’re losing half the battle.
 

New hires may envision themselves at a company long-term — but only if they connect with its purpose, feel valued and challenged, see room for career growth, and are fairly compensated. Today's candidates and employees want it all, so give it to them.
 

You can leverage your employee networks by asking coworkers if they have anyone in mind who’s ready for a career move that’s suitable for the role you’re filling. They have first-hand knowledge regarding company culture, after all.
 

With the right tech to support an employee referrals program, it's easy for employees to refer their professional networks to open roles. A good tool will let employees link directly to open positions on your career site, and enable them to post to social media.
 

With tracking capabilities, you can also keep everyone in the loop regarding hiring status — and recognize employees for their contribution to getting new talent in the door.
 

Apply the same candidate experience ideology to your employee experience to improve retention and foster loyal brand advocates. 
 

6. Improve engagement and retention with a talent marketplace
 

The best-fit candidate for an open position might already be part of your organization. Upskilling existing talent is a great way to support internal mobility and employee development while meeting company needs. 
 

Career pathing powered by artificial intelligence can highlight skills gaps, identify internal talent for future openings, and help TA teams determine when they should look externally to fill critical positions. 
 

Once internal employees are identified, managers can recommend learning courses or gigs — short-term projects within an organization — so they can get hands-on experience and acquire new skills. Gigs also enable employers to reallocate talent to in-demand or critical areas of the business.
 

A talent marketplace can also help track and measure employee engagement, and managers can use that data to identify gaps in growth or retention. 
 

Related resource: How Kuehne+Nagel Empowers Employees To Own & Grow Their Careers
 

7. Implement technology to remove repetitive admin work
 

The definition of recruiting is to enroll someone in an organization for a cause. As a recruiter, this is your job, along with all the repetitive work that comes with it. But we live in the age where automation tools can handle the bulk of the administrative workload so recruiters can focus on high-level tasks and building candidate relationships.
 

Scheduling a single candidate interview, let alone multiple interviews, can be a recruiter’s most time-consuming responsibility. Automated screening and scheduling, however, can help you book interviews at scale, coordinate with internal teams, provide a remarkable candidate experience, and win back your day.
 

8. Improve the candidate’s lifecycle with consistent communication
 

Some miscommunication during the talent journey is inevitable. But major communication gaps are unacceptable according to today's talent — which makes this key revelation from our 2022 State of Candidate Experience Report particularly concerning: Only 1% of companies communicated the status of the application to the candidate using email, text, etc. beyond the initial email confirming submission. This is an extremely low figure for a practice that can be easily automated and reinforce a positive candidate experience. 
 

Advice to live by: Always let candidates know you appreciate their application, and answer their questions about its status. If they progress to an interview, explain the process and set clear expectations. 
 

For candidates who aren't hired, express your appreciation of their time and encourage them to look out for future roles by joining your talent community. Continue engaging and nurturing them based on the content they interact with most — this is where intelligent talent analytics can underpin a truly personalized recruitment marketing strategy. 
 

Frequent, expeditious communication between recruiters and hiring managers also impacts the candidate experience, so make sure these key talent stakeholders are also empowered to collaborate as seamlessly as possible. 
 

Related resource: The Definitive Guide to the Candidate Experience
 

9. Enable hiring managers as recruiting partners
 

The ability to quickly acquire best-fit talent — and deliver an amazing candidate experience — hinges on the relationship between recruiters and managers. Friction between the two can decrease productivity, increase costs, and hinder progress toward your talent acquisition goals.
 

It’s important that recruiters accept input from on-site facility managers in terms of coordinated interview scheduling, criteria listed in job descriptions, and more. You can reduce feedback loops between recruiters and managers by using tools that streamline decision-making and move hiring forward, accelerating how these key stakeholders work together to achieve recruitment goals.
 

10. Increase conversion rates with AI-driven technology 
 

Artificial intelligence for recruiting, hiring, developing, and retaining talent is here to stay. So take advantage of it to connect with best-fit talent faster — increasing your speed, volume, and quality of hire.
 

The Phenom Intelligent Talent Experience platform is one of those AI-powered solutions that offers white-glove delivery of engaged candidates right to your desktop...or mobile. Do your research and implement a platform that boosts your recruitment strategies for 2023!
 

Setting recruitment goals for 2023 like these will help improve your candidate experience and retain your employees for the long haul — ultimately boosting company morale and ROI.
 

Want to explore more solutions to improve how your team hires? Check out our Definitive Guide to Artificial Intelligence for Recruiting!