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Did You Know Your Employees Are Applying For Jobs in Work Time?

Tags: Recruitment Process

Your employees are job hunting at work.

Whether we like it or not, there are always going to be those employees who are thinking of changing jobs. Although we can do our best to make sure our employees are happy at work and feel valued, sometimes, people just want a change. But the problem isn’t job hunting, some cheeky employees are actually looking and applying for jobs at work.

We took a look at the numbers in the Tribepad applicant tracking system (that’s seen millions of applications). We found that the most common time to apply for a job is between 9am and 2pm.

That’s pretty wrong, right?

Surely applying for a new job during work time, and sometimes from a work-provided device, is wrong. It’s not great employee practice and it’s frowned upon, but a lot of people do it.

Research found that 28% of job seekers spend 3 hours a week at work job hunting, nearly ¼ have taken phone interviews and almost 50% have updated their CV in work time. One in 50 job seekers have actually lost their job over being caught role hunting at work (some say unlucky, some might say they deserved it).

How to look after your employees so they don’t want to leave (but be prepared if they do).

Having a Talent Management System (TMS) in place means that you can track your employees’ performance and identify the areas of their role where they may need more support and training. Being able to monitor them in this way makes it much easier for you to support your employees’ professional development and help to plan a career path in your organisation (as well as identifying the skills that need to be developed to get them there).

A TMS will also help to predict when an employee is thinking of leaving your organisation. Looking at patterns in behaviour, a TMS can flag any employees whose performance is declining or shows a lack of interest in their role. You can then start to put a plan in place for when that employee does leave as you won’t feel ambushed when they do choose to hand in their notice.

How to stop candidates applying for your roles in their work time.

You probably don’t want to be part of this culture of encouraging employees of other companies to apply for your jobs while they’re at work. The solution allows your candidates to search and apply for jobs anytime, anywhere. Let candidates upload their CV from their smartphone on their lunch hour or complete a pre-screening questionnaire while they’re waiting for their coffee to brew at the weekend. Make it so that candidates can record their video interview from the comfort of their own sofa, that way they’re much less likely to apply for your jobs in work time.

Our Applicant Tracking System (ATS) and TMS can be used wherever, whenever, from any device. We’ve seen applications being submitted via games console (granted, it doesn’t happen often, but it does happen). Find out about the ins and outs of a Talent Management System.

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