Achieving a skilled and productive workforce is crucial to any business, big or small. But it’s more complex than advertising a job vacancy in local community newsletters, fairs, or social media and hiring the first suitable candidate.
Recruiting is an ongoing process that requires a strategic plan. Visit bsbcon.com/us to locate the top professionals who can guide you in enhancing your business plan.
Create an Employer Brand
A talented team is the key to a company’s success. But talented people don’t knock on your door – you must proactively attract and acquire them. Unlike recruitment, which typically focuses on filling specific open positions, talent acquisition strategies consider your business goals for the next five to five years and tailor your strategies accordingly.
Creating an employer brand is one way to do this. Many prospective employees look at company websites, social media accounts, and job boards to understand what it would be like to work there. Providing them with a realistic picture of life inside your workplace, including images of the team and physical office space, can help them determine whether your culture is a good fit.
In addition, encouraging your current employees to share their experiences on your platforms is a great way to boost engagement. It can be done through employee advocacy software, which provides tools and analytics to track rating trends, branded search impressions, community growth, and more. These data points can help you improve your strategy and attract the best candidates.
Create a Compelling Offer
While calculating metrics like time-to-hire and cost-per-hire relies on complex data, talent acquisition is more about qualitative feedback and how the experience feels for candidates. Small businesses can personalize the process from application to onboarding by offering more check-ins, transparency, and personalized feedback.
The company’s culture is another key driver for candidates. Candidates want to know if your company values work-life balance, career advancement opportunities, and a positive team spirit. If your business doesn’t have a strong value proposition for potential employees, they may seek employment elsewhere.
A reasonable compensation and benefits package is also essential to attract candidates. Candidates may become irritated with the interview process and withdraw their application or reject an offer if they pay less than the going rate. It’s best to do market research to ensure your salary is competitive. Be careful not to ask for too many references, as this can cause candidates to lose interest in your company. Just three to five is recommended.
Create a Great Work Environment
Creating a great work environment is one of the most critical aspects of talent acquisition. Top candidates will be evaluating more than pay and benefits. They will be looking for a company that shares their values and has an excellent culture. Companies that focus on cultivating their employer brand are twice as likely to have high retention rates.
In addition, it’s vital to create a positive work environment by eliminating bias during the job application process. Some ways to do this include removing names and photos from resumes before review, making applications anonymous, and creating a diverse hiring team.
Also, make sure to provide a real sense of what it’s like to be part of your team by ditching stock photos and using pictures of actual team members and the workplace. Incorporate videos as well to create a more authentic experience for prospective candidates. Finally, only require a few references as this can be off-putting to applicants and cause them to lose interest in the company.
Encourage Referrals
Before applying for a job, millions of millennial and Generation Z prospects do online research about the company. As a result, employee recommendation programs can help you outpace the competition by saving you money on hiring and advertising costs.
Encouraging your current employees to make referrals helps boost your hiring success and gives your team a sense of ownership. Show your appreciation by rewarding your top referrers with cash bonuses, extra days off work, or fun SWAG. Ensure that your employee-made referrals are at least interviewed and, at best, offered an open position to fill. Even if the candidate isn’t the perfect fit for your company, they may be the perfect match for a new position.
Streamline your recruitment efforts by making it easy for you and your employees to submit, monitor and evaluate referrals. Look for ERP and ATS solutions that are intuitive, mobile-ready, and engaging for your people. Clunky software can frustrate employees and deter them from making future referrals.
Make Your Company Visible
Unlike giant corporations, small businesses need more resources to recruit globally. For this reason, it is vital to make your company as visible as possible. Attending neighborhood trade exhibits and networking functions might help you become more visible. Partnering with nearby colleges and institutions can also be a great approach to establishing a candidate pool and spreading the word about your company.
To ensure that all applicants are handled equitably and to develop training for your staff on engaging with different prospects, consider employing a diversity, equality, and inclusion (DE & I) specialist. It will contribute to making the workplace more desirable.
Treat talent acquisition with the same importance as any other marketing campaign. For example, data might show that specific questions prevent potential hires from completing job applications, so you may need to remove these. Similarly, adding images and videos of company culture incentivizes more candidates to apply for positions. You can then use this information to improve your job descriptions, career pages, and emails.
