Lack of applicants – too few applications
Vacancies must be filled with the ideal person. It is becoming increasingly difficult to fill vacancies. In addition to the shortage of skilled workers, the current economic situation is also playing a significant role in the recruitment of new employees. Even people who are latently willing to change jobs are currently more likely to be a bird in the hand than a pigeon on the roof. If there are too few applications for a vacancy, the likelihood of finding the right person also decreases, which usually leads to longer recruitment times. As a result, important projects cannot be continued or completed. In addition, the workload for the remaining employees increases, as they often have to carry out additional tasks.
Recruitment costs are another important point. As more time and resources have to be spent on finding and hiring the right person, the associated expenses increase at the same time. For example, job advertisements have to be published on additional job boards or the duration of job advertisements that have already been posted has to be extended. Often forgotten are the invisible costs that arise from unfilled vacancies, for example due to longer delivery times or loss of image, as processes take longer, which can have a negative impact on customer satisfaction. Costs amounting to the annual gross salary of the position to be filled are quickly reached here.
It should also be mentioned that the lack of talent also has a major impact on the development and growth of companies.
Why do companies receive too few applications?
Nowadays, it is still standard practice for jobs that need to be filled to be published on job boards for a certain period of time. Due to the number of job advertisements submitted, only the most recent ones are usually visible on prominent areas of the job boards. The principle often applies that the most recent jobs are placed at the top of the search results. This means that within a day, your own ad can very quickly end up on page 3, 4 or 5 of the results list and therefore out of the view of searchers.
At the same time, it can happen that job ads are not published on the right platforms. For example, there are special platforms for addressing people who are looking for a job in the IT sector. However, if job advertisements are only published on the currently largest job boards (which are not aimed at specific target groups), the right target group may not even see the job advertisement. Data-based approaches can be used to easily track whether the desired target group has been reached. This enables recruiting teams to actively influence the success of their efforts.
However, we must not forget that image, evaluations, development opportunities and company culture are also decisive factors for people looking for a job. Companies must therefore make sure that they are attractive to people looking for a job. Companies can achieve this by presenting themselves in an authentic, innovative and appealing way. They should also respond to negative reviews and incorporate them into the development of their own brand.
What can the solution look like?
There have been many innovations in recent years, especially in the HR and recruiting sector. Data-based processes should be mentioned here. These processes have been known in the field of online marketing for some time. In comparison to runtime-based publication of job advertisements, data-based recruiting processes focus on the performance of job advertisements. This is often communicated as the PPP principle (“pay per performance”). Intelligent algorithms in the background can help to optimize a recruiting campaign to fill vacancies. Job advertisements are published on a variety of job platforms. The algorithms control the management of the job advertisements. If a job exchange does not deliver the desired traffic, the job advertisement is removed and republished on another. Furthermore, the job advertisements can also be published on the platforms where experience has shown that the most qualified people for the individual position can be found.
A future without a shortage of applicants
In the not-too-distant future, open positions will be presented to the right group of people thanks to smart tools and technologies. Even if the number of applications will probably continue to decrease, the probability of a perfect fit will increase. It is also important to make contact processes as low-threshold and user-friendly as possible, including for mobile devices. job advertisements are displayed to the right target audience in the shortest possible time. AI-driven processes minimize the cost of filling a vacancy. In future, HR managers will be able to fill vacancies with ideally suited people.