Across all industries, the need to find and recruit high quality talent has reached a significant point. Skills shortages are arguably now the greatest barrier to growth for many organizations, which is why recruitment and retention is now an increasingly important priority for business leaders.
According to a PwC’s Workforce survey, 23% of UK workers expect to change jobs within the next twelve months, up from 18% in 2022. This suggests that the ‘Great Resignation’ is certainly not over, meaning it’s up to employers to entice prospective employees more than ever.
With organizations battling rivals to gain traction within finite talent pools, they are having to showcase to potential hires an enhanced level of employee experience – from benefits to well-being through to flexible working, training and career development opportunities. They’re also having to demonstrate how their organizational values and purpose align with an employee’s own drive and priorities.
It’s vital to recognize however, that technology – and in particular, applications and digital services – now sit at the heart of the recruitment process. Global research by Cisco AppDynamics finds that the average person now uses a total of six applications or digital services when looking for or applying for a new job – and this increases to eight in the U.S. and nine in India.
Today's job seekers use a wide range of different digital services – including jobs sites, social media, employer websites and employer review sites. And most are using these services daily so as HR leaders double down on their strategies to attract talent, they must ensure their applications and digital services – whether that’s careers pages on their websites or email and messaging services for candidates – are performing at an optimal level. Otherwise, they risk annoying and alienating potential hires.
Jobseekers have no time for employers that deliver poor digital experiences
With people now entirely reliant on digital services to find, research and apply for new jobs, their expectations for these services are now sky-high. 97% of jobseekers state it’s important the applications they use to find and apply for jobs provide a fast and seamless experience, without any delays or disruption. Additionally, 64% claim that if these applications fail to perform, it puts them off working for the potential employer.
For employers, this is a stark message – if their recruitment-focused applications and digital services suffer from disruption or downtime, they are jeopardizing their chances of attracting almost two-thirds of potential new hires.
People now want the same level of digital experience from their employer (or potential employer) as they get in every other area of their lives. They expect their experience when looking for and applying for a new job to match that when they’re streaming movies and music, ordering groceries, or connecting with friends online.
HR leaders need to recognize that people are no longer willing to accept second rate digital experiences just because applications and digital services are work-related. And they also need to be aware that people’s reactions when they encounter poorly performing applications are now incredibly strong. 73% of people admit that they would feel anxious and angry if the applications they were using to find and apply for a new job didn’t perform properly.
Employers can secure leading talent by optimizing application performance
The message from job seekers to potential employers is clear – they simply won’t put up with disruption or downtime when using jobs-related digital services. In fact, more than half claim that employers have only one shot to impress them with their digital services. There are no second chances.
This is why it’s so essential for HR leaders to work with their IT departments to ensure that they are providing potential hires with fast and seamless experiences at every stage of the recruitment process.
Currently, many organizations are struggling to manage application availability and performance within multi-cloud and hybrid environments. Technologists don’t have the unified visibility they need to get a clear line of sight on applications running across on-premises and cloud native environments and this makes it extremely difficult for them to identify and troubleshoot issues before they impact end users – whether that be customers, current employees or potential new recruits.
To mitigate this risk, organizations need to implement an observability solution which spans across both cloud native and on-premises environments and allows technologists to monitor the health of key business transactions distributed across their entire technology landscape. With real-time insights from the business transaction’s telemetry data, technologists can swiftly understand the root cause of issues and expedite resolution, so that applications are operating at peak performance at all times.
Significantly, the research shows that employers that can deliver seamless digital experiences can take a big step towards becoming an employer of choice for candidates. 78% of people claim that they would want to work for an employer that provides brilliant, seamless digital experiences throughout the recruitment process.
At a time when HR leaders are looking for any advantage, they can get over their rivals in the jobs market, this is a potentially game changing benefit. By focusing on digital experience throughout the recruitment process, employers can steal a march on the competition and attract the high-quality talent they need to grow.
