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The corporate career site used to be the yardstick by which employers of choice were measured. Now, the search for talent has been taken over by job boards and applicant tracking systems, search engines, social networks and more. Just as every innovation eventually downshifts from wow to whatever, every innovator and early adopter inevitably risks losing the competitive edge that innovation brought with it, unless they can continuously innovate.

The search for skilled talent is heating up again. Where will companies find the next opportunities to innovate? How can they change, improve and enhance the recruiting process? How do they sustain competitive advantage — from sourcing to on-boarding and every step in between?

Here [is the first of] five innovations that can provide a competitive edge in recruiting right now.

A new and improved talent supply chain model. Switch from full life cycle recruiting to a specialist model. Specialization of roles, with designated experts handling sourcing, recruiting and operations, can promote superior performance all along the talent supply chain. It allows sourcing specialists to be better hunters and recruiters to do a better job managing candidate and hiring manager relationships and results. Let operational specialists focus on recruitment administration. Establishing a streamlined process managed by the specialist experts can increase productivity in all areas.

SEO and job distribution. Search engine optimization (SEO) applied to job distribution can boost visibility. A searchable landing page, with all jobs featured and indexed, can help draw the right candidates. This form of reverse engineering the job posting process can aid in the capture of information for all those who visit the site. Think about the value of building a proprietary talent pool instead of building someone else’s. Establish a direct connection with candidates and leverage it to keep them engaged with the organization for multiple job opportunities. It can promote more effective sourcing at a lower cost and speedier job fills with better-matched candidates.

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To read the complete article, please here.

Chris Gould is senior director, talent acquisition solutions sourcing leader, at Aon Hewitt. He has been in HR consulting since 1996 and is an expert in social media, sourcing and recruiting. He can be reached at his firm.