5 Tips for Gifting Clients the Best Candidates this Holiday Season

 It’s the time of year when the twinkle lights go up and people start composing their list of the gifts they’ve been dreaming about all year. As a staffing professional, your clients are certainly no different. Although they’re probably not dreaming about a new iPad or a big screen TV.

What clients really want this season is top-tier talent, and with the war for talent raging, it’s increasingly hard to make their holiday dreams come true. If it’s tough to find talent for your clients now, know it’s only going to get more complicated in 2014.

Hiring will continue to be cut-throat for technical positions, with the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics predicting hiring in this field to double all other industries by 2016. And for those looking for candidates with science, technology, engineering, and math degrees, there’s more bad news. The new year is expected to bring a shortage of STEM grads, meaning increased competition over a shallow pool of candidates.

So, how do you give clients what they really want this holiday season without getting trampled by the competition? Here are a few ways to make the holiday season merry and bright for your clients by delivering top-tier talent:

Make A List

Before you start the search, take a page out of Santa’s playbook. You need to make a list of the dream attributes of your client’s ideal hire. This could be a list of programs they know or soft skills they posses.

Use this list to craft a simple yet compelling job description likely to attract the right candidates to the job. To attract “nice” candidates, you need to do your homework and include keywords the right people are searching for. If you want to gift your clients the best talent this winter, you have to do your homework first.

Check It Twice

Speaking of doing your homework, Santa shouldn’t be the only one double-checking this holiday season. Studies have found 46 percent of resumes received by recruiters contain at least one little white lie.

So, before you pass on a great candidate to your clients, make sure they’re not a little too good to be true. Check into the individual’s background and check with his or her references to ensure your superstar candidate isn’t actually a lump of coal.

Streamline the Interview Process

The big guy in red manages to get around the world delivering toys in only one night. There’s no way your recruitment process can be that speedy, but there are still some smart ways you can streamline the traditional hiring process. For instance, the phone screen is a cumbersome and inefficient method of connecting with candidates only likely to waste precious time. Instead of wasting a half hour or more by phone, connect with candidates in a one-way video interview.

Research by the Aberdeen Group has shown recruiters can watch 10 one-way video interviews in the time it takes to do only one phone screen. It’s not exactly around the world in one night, but this can considerably shorten the over bloated recruiting process.

Get Creative

Creativity isn’t just for the elves at the North Pole. This holiday season, you’ll have to be creative if you want to attract the best candidates and beat out your competitors to talent. It might be time to start promoting open positions on social media or moderating an industry-specific Twitter chat in order to connect with talent.

Social media can be a great way to connect and discover the whip-smart thought leaders in your client’s industry. You could even record and share a video outlining the position and company culture. The key is to think of outside-the-box ways to attract the candidates your clients want to see in the office in 2014.

Move Quickly

With the war for talent raging, you can’t afford to sit around waiting for Santa to drop the perfect candidate down the chimney. You have to be proactive and move quickly when you’ve found a great potential hire.

Try to ensure your entire hiring team is on the same page all the way through the process, so you can scoop up great candidates before they’re gone. This might mean sharing video interviews or improving your daily communication. Just like the elves running things in the North Pole, teamwork is essential if you want to gift your clients with the very best quality candidates.

This winter, remember to take some hints from the season in order to give clients what they really want: top-notch talent!

What are some ways you can apply holiday lessons to talent acquisition? Sound off in the comments!