Companies of all sizes compete to attract top talent. Unfortunately, small businesses are disadvantaged because they can’t offer the same competitive salaries and benefits. However, with a quality recruitment strategy, it’s possible to compete with large corporations and companies for the best of the best. Here are a few effective recruitment strategies for attracting top talent no matter the size of your organization:
Create Your Value Proposition
If you’ve invested in marketing, you already have a value proposition you use to attract customers. An employee value proposition works the same way but helps you attract job candidates by highlighting the employee experience and why they should work for you. In addition, your employee value proposition should include details every candidate wants, such as compensation and benefits information.
Prospective employees may also want to know about the workplace, including growth opportunities, work type, overall environment, and employee well-being. You should also indicate information about your company culture and values.
You can publish your value proposition on your career page or use a snippet on a job board to attract candidates. These can be seen as fitness perks, paid PTO, unique investment opportunities, and more.
Create & Optimize a Career Page
Every business should have a career page on its website to help attract qualified candidates. Job seekers may visit your career page directly, or it can be an additional resource to learn more about the company. A career page provides enough space to help you convince candidates to apply for open positions and allows you to add photos. Even if you use job boards to recruit candidates, having this additional page on your website can help them learn as much as possible about the company to decide whether they want to apply.
On your career page, highlight the benefits of working for your organization and your value proposition that can encourage candidates to take action. You can also include a list of FAQs to help candidates get their questions answered before they apply.
Host Recruitment Events
Recruitment events can be a great opportunity to meet prospective candidates in person to help them find the right role within your organization. You can host these events by connecting with universities or local schools and providing resources to help recent graduates prepare for their future roles.
Additionally, you can work with the local community to find recruits. For example, you can host events at your office and welcome prospective candidates to meet with various company leaders to learn more about open positions and determine if they’re a good fit. These walk-in events remove a lot of the stress associated with more formal interviews and allow candidates to have a more personalized experience.
Build a Talent Community
Many companies have a list of candidates who have interviewed for a role and weren’t chosen. Instead of throwing their resumes away, you can keep them on file and keep in contact with them for when a more suitable role opens up. When there’s a new position at your company, go through the resumes you already have on file before posting the job online. You may be able to find someone in your talent pool you’d like to interview for the role.
You can also set up alerts for job seekers so they know when a role they might be interested in becomes available. You can use a few different platforms to set up alerts, allowing candidates to sign up for the type of alerts they want. With job alerts, organizations have consistent warm leads in their talent community and can find interested candidates without doing any additional work.
Create an Employee Referral Program
An employee referral program allows you to leverage your existing top talent to find candidates for open positions. An employee referral program involves asking your employees to recommend candidates for various roles, reducing recruitment costs and allowing for faster hires.
You must identify your priorities if you want to use an employee referral program. Referrals usually work well for recruiting candidates quickly. However, they may also be effective for hiring hard-to-fill positions or those that require niche expertise. In addition, this program requires a policy to set employee expectations and outline incentives for helping the company hire new employees.
Incentives for employees who participate in the program can be monetary or non-monetary, such as additional vacation days or gifts. However, you should try to find incentives that will encourage most, if not all, of your employees to participate in the program.
Use Automation
Automation can help you throughout the recruitment process using technologies like machine learning and artificial intelligence to reduce the time required to hire employees. Automation can be used for the following tasks:
- Advertising
- Applicant tracking
- Pre-screening
- Document automation
- Interview scheduling
- Signing electronic letters & employment contracts
Focus on Boomerang Employees
Boomerang employees are those who leave the company and eventually return. Many individuals may return to a former work for various reasons, but the most important is that you can bring previous employees back. Never take an employee leaving the company personally. Instead, consider them as one of your most valuable assets. If you can successfully bring employees back to your company, you can reduce onboarding costs and hire someone you know understands the company and its customers.
After leaving yours, this individual has likely gained new skills and experience from other organizations. So while you likely won’t be able to convince them to return to their old job for the same pay, they may be the perfect candidate for a new open position or more experienced role when they return.
Improving Your Recruitment Strategy
Recruitment is challenging for businesses of all sizes. When hiring for different roles and forms of employment, you need various strategies to help you fill open positions quickly. Attracting and onboarding top talent is crucial, so it’s important to demonstrate your value as a company and why candidates should apply for open positions.
Additionally, discussing open positions with existing employees and reaching out to past employees can be an effective method for reducing recruitment costs and time spent looking for candidates.
Megan Isola
Megan Isola holds a Bachelor of Science in Hospitality and a minor in Business Marketing from Cal State University Chico. She enjoys going to concerts, trying new restaurants, and hanging out with friends.