Improve Recruiting Top Talent with Simple, Effective Candidate Sourcing Strategies
“According to ONS, in August to October 2021, the number of published job vacancies has reached a new record of 1,172,000. This is about 388,000 more than the pre-pandemic January to March 2020 level.”
Attracting the right talent to your organisation is more crucial and difficult than ever. Highly skilled individuals are more likely than ever to receive a counter offer. Employers must create a solid talent sourcing pipeline that yields brilliant candidates, and ensure that their organisation is the one that stands out in a crowded market.
So, here we have listed down some Iconic Resourcing tips to help you establish the best possible recruiting process.
1. Create an Interesting Job Description
Do you know that candidates only spend about 26 seconds reading a job description? Crafting an engaging and compelling job description is vital.
The basic elements that your job description must include are: Expected duties of the employee; The responsibilities of the job; The skills required to perform the job.
But aside from the basic overview and job requirements, what should your job description include to engage the candidates?
- Clearly state your business goals. Prospective employee’s want to hear about your drivers, just as you want to hear theirs.
- Use tone and language that caters to the applicants. If you write your job advert to sounds like all the others, it will have the same response. Let the readers hear your tone of voice.
- What makes your role different to all the others? This could be location, soft benefits, recent successes. Whatever it is, get it in there and stand out from the crowd.
- Remember to tell them what you will offer them? Future training? Progression? Extended benefits.
Writing a compelling job description is highly crucial for attracting the right candidates. If you have created your job description right, candidates will notice.
2. Do Your Research
If each candidate is different, why ask them the same questions? Researching the background of your short-listed candidates before the interview will help you a great deal during the interview process. Research helps you learn the past experiences of candidates, what they are looking for in a company, and enables you to prepare the right interview questions. It will also tell you whether your work environment would be suitable for the candidate and whether they would be able to meet your productivity needs.
3. Describe Your Business as Unique
When writing about your company in a job posting or on your website, don’t be shy about highlighting your unique qualities. The uniqueness of a company and good work culture can be deciding considerations between your business and another. Always outline the benefits, goals, location, company structure, etc. to set your business apart and attract quality applicants.
Here are a few tips that can benefit you in this regard:
- Highlight your collaborative work culture
- Mention flexibility of working hours and options of remote work
- Clearly state your business goals
- Use tone and language that caters to the applicants
- Describe the location benefits and office designs
- Outline benefits that make your employees happy
4. Be Proactive and Network
The most significant rule to hire the best applicant is getting to know them during the interview. The primary purpose of these questions is for you to learn all about them, build rapport and show them that you are invested in them as a person.
There are points of interest all over the CV, that will allow you to strike up a rapport and get to know them, out with their work experience.
Some things you can look out for
- Education and qualifications, often there will be things in here that give you an insight into their interests, as well as their career aspirations.
- Additional interests. If someone plays sports, is involved in charity etc. asking them about this is a great way to get to know them as a person. If it is important enough to them to include in their CV, it shouldn’t be ignored!
Setting up a proactive strategy to attract candidates will set you apart from the crowd. Candidates will be making their first impressions based on these things, and they will be comparing you to everyone else out there. If you take the time to make the best impression, it will get noticed.
Kerry McFarlane recruits across all Marketing sectors in Scotland and is fully immersed in recruiting the best marketing talent from digital marketing through to social media and communications. If you would like to have a chat with Kerry about making your next move or to find your next hire, reach out to her today at kerry@iconicresourcing.com