Which candidate attraction channels work best?

After an employer’s own website, LinkedIn is the most popular method of attracting candidates, according to a survey of UK in-house recruitment professionals.

The professional networking site is also the only candidate-sourcing channel to attract applications with a consistent balance of quality and quantity.

Talent acquisition software provider Eploy surveyed around 700 recruiters, predominantly in-house, to determine the candidate sourcing channels and recruitment marketing techniques that deliver the best results.

Its annual candidate attraction report, now in its eighth year, again found the biggest recruitment challenge to be the lack of suitably qualified, skilled and experienced candidates.

This affected 61% of organisations, while building a diverse and inclusive workforce was the second key challenge (34%).

Advertised salaries being lower than the market average was the third biggest challenge affecting 31%.

Eploy chief technology officer Chris Bogh said: “For the eighth year of the UK Candidate Attraction Survey, we received responses across all industries and company sizes, which gave us a good understanding of the differences between the various demographics.

“Since its inception, the report has provided detailed insight into hiring challenges and the ways various sectors approach talent acquisition.”

Eploy’s report focuses on candidate quality and quantity that talent acquisition professionals attribute to different recruitment marketing channels. Employee referrals continue to attract the highest quality candidates, but volumes are relatively low. Recruitment agencies, specialist job boards and talent pools also fare well.

Social media attracted low-quality candidates in low quantities in comparison with other channels.

The report details the effectiveness of different channels across all industry sectors and by company size, charting each channel’s impact on the quality and quantity of candidates.

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