We’re in the final stretch of 2022 and are gearing up for 2023 hiring. That may seem daunting, especially in today’s labor market. While some organizations have been partaking in layoffs and are slowing hiring, fearing a potential recession, Jefferies reports that strategic organizations still expect the labor market to remain tight in 2023. 

What does that mean? 72% of respondents say the labor market will continue to tighten despite the uptick in unemployment. This is because the number of job openings in the global economy will continue to exceed the number of unemployed. The predicted global talent shortage will reach 85.2 million people by 2030. 

So despite slowdowns in Fall 2022, we can expect hiring to regain focus in 2023 and continue seeing the same hiring challenges of 2021 and 2022. (Not so wonderful news for those of us in talent acquisition.) 

But there are steps you can take now to make the process more seamless and expedite those hires. Step one is to evaluate your recruiting process to check if your talent acquisition journey runs in a loop – keeping current employees engaged and recruiting their friends – reducing churn, and filling talent pipelines.

While many of you in talent acquisition have seen various loops, funnels, diagrams – whatever – over the years and may think this is just another fad, I promise that while the design may change, the sentiment holds: hiring isn’t linear.

There are many touchpoints in the process, and the unique circumstances of industries, departments, roles, and individuals all factor into how the recruitment process rolls out. 

However, despite the varied processes, we see vendors continuing to build talent acquisition ecosystems in a straight line with tools that don’t integrate, forcing users to start from scratch every time or only interact in a relevant way at one or two stages. 

That is why talent technology must be built with a continuous, growing, and scalable infinity loop concept in mind along the candidate journey.

3 ways talent acquisition technology helps you to hire more efficiently in 2023

The first, most critical component of your hiring strategy that talent acquisition technology and the infinity loop strategy can support is conversion. 

• Conversions and hiring activities 

Your talent acquisition technology should help you interact with candidates deeply, clearly, and convincingly, no matter where they are in that candidate journey. And at its most simple metric, this dramatically increases conversions of leads into applicants within your applicant tracking system (ATS). 

Simultaneously, this impacts end-users of talent acquisition technology in a powerful way. By delivering a scalable platform that performs, with automation, at every stage of the candidate journey, from one place - your talent acquisition system sees increased adoption by talent acquisition teams because of that consolidation of tools, reduction of clicks/logins, and powerful end-t0-end analytics that are unlocked in the technology when we easily integrate the system into your ATS. 

PRO TIP: Your conversions rely on your talent analytics. Your hiring data delivers a tailored activation strategy for your talent technology. Data tells your organization’s recruitment story and showcases where you are most effective in the candidate lifecycle. (Learn more about recruitment data and how it accelerates candidate connections in this blog post.) 

Your recruitment marketing partner can set you up with activation tactics for each stage – empowering you to be more effective at generating hires (conversions). 

Once you’ve hired the best, you can’t let your guard down. Advocacy and mobility are the last two critical links that complete and make this a continuous infinity loop. Without them, churn is high, costs are high, and risk as an employer is massive. 

• Advocacy and talent referral programs 

Great people know great people, and referrals are key to every organization’s talent pipeline. An employee referral program is a great way to ensure you don’t break your talent infinity loop.

To create a smart advocacy program with engaging experiences, ask yourself: What’s in it for employees and how do you make it enjoyable? While referral bonuses can be a great motivator, no one will jump through too many hoops for extra cash. The process has to be as frictionless and transparent as possible.

A successful referral program encompasses three things: simplicity, feedback and visibility. 

One of the most significant pieces of feedback we hear on why a referral program fails is because it’s not easy to navigate. Employees receive updates on their referrals, causing them to get discouraged, and adoption drops off.  

PRO TIP: Your referral tool should make it easy for your employees to share jobs and for referrals to apply to those jobs. Plus, your end users need to be able to track where their referrals are in the application process and track any bonuses that they now qualify for. (Learn more about the secret sauce behind employee referrals here.) 

• Internal mobility programs 

As your employees’ careers advance, so do your talent experience programs. You must be just as mindful when creating the best experience and advancement opportunities for your current employees. 

Why? Your competitors are lurking. Here’s a metaphor for you to consider when it comes to internal mobility: I just got married, and the best advice I got was, “be married like you’re dating.” Try mirroring this exact thought with your employees.

PRO TIP: How do you continue to date those current employees? Make them feel special by marketing those newly opened jobs to employees first. You can do this by posting available positions on an internal career site. Providing an engaging internal mobility experience for employees nurtures loyalty in your brand. (Learn more about internal career sites here.) 

Want to learn more about referral and internal mobility programs?

Check out our latest on-demand product tour, where I dug into these programs in detail with Sofie Buckland, senior product manager of Symphony Talent.