In a candidate led environment, are you making the right steps with your recruitment to attract top talent?
Here are our top tips for getting ahead of your competitors.
Writing the perfect advert, nailing your job description and personal spec all mean nothing if candidates can’t see your vacancy. Think about your current visibility and consider how inclusive it is? In a digital age, some more traditional forms of recruitment are being forgotten in favour of their online counterparts, but does this exclude an entire candidate pool?
Don’t fall into the trap of posting the full job description in your job advert. The advert should act as a snippet of what you are looking for, not have every detail of the job listed.
Within your job advert, avoid using too many company-specific acronyms and jargon. You are looking to encourage new blood to your organisation, so aiming your advert at someone in a new talent pool will require you to ditch the jargon and help attract top talent from more diverse sectors.
Clear and detailed job descriptions and entry requirements will help narrow down your field of viable candidates, allowing recruiting managers to concentrate their time and efforts on the top contenders from the early stages.
Sometimes your role may strictly dictate that a candidate really ‘must-have’ a specific qualification, but in the new age of modern apprenticeships you may be discounting an entire group of high-quality candidates who may have valuable academic alternatives, with the added bonus of on-the-job experience. Stating a certain number of years’ experience in a role may also leave you vulnerable to claims of age discrimination for candidates ruled out because they are unable to meet this criterion due to their age.
You may also be familiar with the widely quoted Hewlett Packard report, which found female job seekers typically wait until they match 100% of the job requirements before applying. Listing jobs with an extensive list of “must-haves” could put off a significant proportion of top-quality candidates before they even look to apply.
This should, where possible, include timescales and recruitment stages. All too often, candidates are left wondering “what next?” Keeping them up-to-date as you move along the recruitment journey is essential to keep the top contenders interested – especially in an environment where talent is scarce. Aiming to maximise the candidate experience will put your vacancy and Company at the top of their list.
A comprehensive applicant tracking system is only the start of the tech journey – consider investing in onboarding technology too, as this will demonstrate your commitment to maximising employee experience and be attractive to top candidates.
A good ATS will make the administration tasks within the recruitment process much simpler, all the while gathering valuable insight as to what is working – and importantly, what isn’t. These insights can be used to streamline process and ensure you keep on top of each candidate through the recruitment stages, and, if things don’t work out, capture what went wrong to avoid similar stumbling points next time.
The world of work and way we work has changed, in a post-covid world, people have reprioritised and much like recruiters, top candidates will have their own list of ‘must-haves’ when considering new roles. From hybrid working to part-time hours or full flexi-time offerings, non-monetary rewards are more important than ever.
If you say you’re competitive, be competitive! Financial compensation will always be a factor, so it’s prudent to undertake proper benchmarking exercises for new roles to ensure you are able to attract and retain the cream of the crop. All too often, Companies make claims that they are people-centric, but fail to demonstrate this with their actions, Company culture or policies. When recruiting, communicate stories which highlight you are centred around your people – internal promotions, milestone personal achievements and meaningful development plans and appraisals all show potential recruits that you do celebrate success and put your people front and centre.
In 2022 research showed that it cost an additional 33%* of an employee’s salary to recruit and onboard successfully. Making sure you don’t take your foot off the pedal once a candidate accepts your offer is therefore fundamental in success to ensure you can continue to attract top talent and retain it, in a candidate led job market.
If your company needs HR and recruitment support to attract top talent, Vero HR can help. We can provide you with dedicated HR services to effectively manage your workforce and assist with your business HR requirements. Contact us to find out how we can help your business.
