Are You Doing What You Need to Attract Top Talent?
/In a candidate-driven climate, you need to market yourself if you want to get the attention of top-tier professionals
The world of recruiting and talent acquisition looks much different than it did just a few years ago. It has evolved and adapted alongside industry-changing technologies, like recruitment automation and video interviewing, but one of the biggest shifts is the strong emphasis now placed on the candidate experience and employer branding.
Basically, companies don’t have the luxury of waiting for top candidates to knock on their door anymore. As a matter of fact, 90 percent of the market is now driven by the candidate, meaning, they’re in the driver’s seat and they expect you, the prospective employer, to sell them on an opportunity.
If you want to make your company a desirable destination for top talent, then you need to differentiate from the competition. Remember, good candidates will most likely field multiple offers, so it’s crucial to have a solid branding and recruitment marketing strategy if you want to be a top contender.
This is what you need to do if you want to attract the best talent:
Define your Employer Value Proposition (EVP)
Your Employer Value Proposition should be at the epicenter of your branding strategy. In short, your EVP is a resounding statement as to what you, the employer, can bring to the table for your employees in return for their hard work. This is your opportunity to demonstrate why a candidate should choose you.
Your EVP should cover the following components:
Compensation: salary, bonuses, promotions
Benefits: PTO (holidays, sick days, vacation days), insurance
Career opportunities: career development, continuing education, special training
Work environment and culture: work-life balance, collaboration, relationships, social responsibility, etc.
To define your EVP, you’ll first want to create your candidate persona, or representation of your ideal candidate. This is generated by defining the traits of the person perfect for the job at hand, as well as for your company at large.
From there, flesh out each of your EVP components through methods such as competitive analysis and internal polling. You’ll want a fully formed definition for each of your EVP sections, so be thoughtful about them, especially since these will be candidate-facing.
Once your EVP is complete, you can begin to customize and personalize it for your audience. Consider your communication channels and their readers (social networks, career sites, etc.) and highlight certain areas of your EVP in order to appeal to the targeted demographic.
Understand your recruitment channels
When considering which recruitment channels to invest in, remember to always keep your candidate preferences in mind. You could be doing yourself a disservice if you’re putting all of your energy into one channel. Remember, the search for job opportunities is evolving with new technologies and websites, so it’s important to explore the newly favored channels if you want to attract desirable candidates.
Your company career site: While this may seem like an antiquated channel, 64 percent of job seekers will use your career site to find opportunities within your organization. That said, modern-day job seekers expect your career page to do more than just exist. As a company, you need to make sure that it’s optimized for SEO and mobile, well-designed, in line with your brand, easy to navigate, and fast-loading. This may be your one opportunity to make a good impression, so keep it up-to-date and fresh.
Job notifications: This is where good calls-to-actions (CTA’s) on your career site come in handy. A well-worded CTA gives interested job seekers the opportunity to enter their email addresses into your database, and allows you the opportunity to send them alerts via an automated system as relevant opportunities become available. Since job alerts require people to consciously opt-in, they are a sign of highly interested candidates.
LinkedIn: LinkedIn is far and away the most popular professional social network, and a top resource for job seekers looking for new opportunities. It offers insights into your candidates and provides access to people who may have otherwise been unreachable. Social media is here to stay, and while all talent acquisition professionals plan to use it as a tool for hiring, not many feel comfortable doing so. It’s time to get up to speed.
Reviews: Access to employer reviews has revolutionized the job hunt by giving potential candidates insight into the work lives of current and past employees. Websites like Glassdoor provide a platform for employees to provide an inside view of the job and the organization, ideally making it more attractive to your top candidates. This also gives you a public opportunity to respectfully reply to not-so-favorable reviews, which prospective candidates view as a sign of professionalism and grace.
Work with a professional recruiter
Now that there is such high value placed on the candidate experience, companies can’t afford to be off of their game. Top candidates, both on and off the job market, can be found and courted by several companies at any given time, and every move will be evaluated by the candidate. Developing and fostering your recruitment strategy and candidate marketing strategy are very time-consuming, which is why many have opted to use professional recruiting firms to manage these efforts.
Recruiters make for some of the best brand ambassadors, and they know what it takes to find and acquire top talent. They also know how to make you look like the rockstar company that you are.
At the end of the day, the most important thing to remember when trying to attract top talent is to be authentic. Creating a façade or trying to attract people with smoke and mirrors will only result in high turnover and a tarnished reputation. If you can identify your unique value proposition and then creatively communicate that to your desired candidate pool, you will attract the right people for the right roles.
Carrington Legal Search is devoted to finding the ideal candidates for our clients’ recruitment needs. We have particular expertise in the Financial Services (banking, insurance, investment management, etc.) and Technology verticals. To make our nationwide network work for you, get in touch at 512-627-7467 or email carrie@carringtonlegal.com