Today’s talent market is highly
competitive. Every company wants to hire the best talent but the top candidates are only available for 10 days before
they get hired, according to Talentnow. To hire them, you need to outpace your
competitors and speed up your hiring process.
However, the average hiring time is around 23.7 days, which is double that number. So it’s no surprise that about 42%
of organizations fear they’ll lose out on the best talent, (according to the
previously-cited report from Talentnow).
It’s for
this reason that sourcing candidates is extremely important. Here are some ways
to hire the best talent.
1. Hire Your
Brand’s Fans
Your
brand’s fans are the people who will take ownership of the company. These
people may even work harder than your regular employees because they share the
same vision as you. The best part about fans is that they are great for
word-of-mouth marketing. They will likely go and tell their social circle about
your organization.
This can
get their friends interested in working with you as well. If they are
passionate enough about the role, you can consider placing them even if they
don’t have all of the requisite skills. Skills are trainable. Passion is not.
2. Treat
Candidates Like Customers
Every
successful organization places their customers above everything else. You
should do the same with your candidates as well. You can even think about your recruitment strategy as a marketing and sales funnel.
Qualified
candidates should be treated just the way you would treat a high-quality lead.
You must make the effort to impress them and give them a great hiring
experience. This is where you can use software like Candidate Rewards.
Image via
Candidate Rewards
Candidate
Rewards allows you to create custom landing pages for each of your candidates.
It shows them the exact value of their offer letter and even gives them
personalized access to content. This includes videos about your organization, a
CEO’s message, and more.
You can
even track the activity of your candidates in real time and figure out what
they want the most. This will help you to tailor your offer letters to make
them more compelling.
3. Create a
Great Working Environment
Word-of-mouth
marketing is a great way to find the best talent for your organization. It even
makes sourcing candidates easier for you. For this, you need to make sure that
your working environment keeps your current employees happy.
You need
to build a great work culture and create a friendly place where people can work
together in peace. This will create a positive effect on the employees, who
will enjoy working for your organization.
This may
even make them work harder and recommend your organization to their social circles.
About 48% of businesses say that employee referrals are the best source of talent.
4. Offer Challenging
Tasks
The best
talent out there will seldom be interested in boring projects that don’t
stimulate them. They will constantly look for projects that will challenge them
and keep them on their toes. Such projects allow them to set a target and then
meet it.
Sourcing candidates can be much easier if you come up with challenging projects. The best talent will
want to grab the opportunity and make the most out of it. This will ensure that
you can hire the best talent out there for your organization. Additionally,
once they do meet their targets, they will be thankful to the organization for
providing them the opportunity. This helps you retain your talent as well.
5. Strengthen
Your Brand Online
It is
important to not only strengthen your brand for customers but also for talent.
You need to create a strong employer brand online. A brand that people have
heard of and follow online will seem more attractive to the top talent out
there.
You
should showcase your company culture and write frequently about it online.
Create a company blog or write guest posts on other relevant sites in your
niche. When top talent reads your content, they will be prompted to join your
team.
6. Network
Continuously
A great
way of sourcing candidates is through networking. While networking does help
you connect with customers, it can also help you reach the best talent. You
must take out the time to attend events and meetups in your industry.
These
events and meetups tend to have the top people from the industry under one
roof. And if you speak about your organization at an event, you’ll effectively
be selling your brand’s vision to the listeners. Many of these people may be
interested in joining your organization. In fact, about 55% of people say they had a good relationship with the brand before applying
for a job with them.
7. Consider
Remote Employees
It’s a
good idea to not be fixated on hiring only local employees. You should be open
to remote employees as well. This is especially true if you’re having a tough
time finding reliable employees in your area.
Remote
employees can be from any part of the world and they allow you access to a huge
talent pool. The best part about remote employees is that you generally don’t
need to offer them as many perks as your in-house team. This can help you save
money as well.
If remote
employment doesn’t work for you, perhaps you can offer a flexible working
environment. This could be something like flexible working hours or providing
days where employees can work from home. This can make the offer more
attractive to your candidates.
Final Thoughts
Hiring
may seem like a difficult process. However, by valuing your candidates as much
as your customers, sourcing candidates will become easier. You also need to
create a good working environment that will automatically get you some
word-of-mouth publicity. Being flexible with work hours and work locations can
also help attract the best candidates to your organization.
What do
you think is the most important factor that attracts the best talent to join an
organization? Let us know in the comments.
