39% of employers have reported having difficulty filling skilled job positions.
Beyond the skill shortage, the best candidates are being scooped up by high-paying competitors. This makes it more challenging than ever to land the dedicated and capable employees that your company needs to excel in your field.
Fortunately, there are several recruiting strategies that you can use to overshadow hiring competitors and land the best employees for the job.
Follow along to discover thirteen of the best hiring strategies for your unique business needs to finally find skilled, dedicated, and ready employees to help your business grow.
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Table of Contents
Treat Candidates Like Customers
The first and most valuable hiring strategy we can offer is to start treating potential hires like customers.
This applies to the advertising, interview process, and onboarding of your future employees. By prioritizing these candidates like you would a customer, they begin to get a feel for the level of professionalism and service your company offers.
Beyond this, customer-level treatment invites in high-quality employees that are looking for a spectacular place to work.
For customer-quality treatment during the hiring process, follow these three simple guidelines.
Respect Their Time
Don’t keep candidates waiting for their interview. Schedule time slots that you can keep and do your best to be flexible. Some of your candidates may still be working other jobs or juggling interviews. With this in mind, a little understanding and time flexibility can be an enticing perk.
Be Hospitable
Give them a taste of what it will be like to work for you by offering them some great hospitality. When they sit down, see if they would like a glass of water or a coffee. This goes a long way to help them relax and feel at ease in your office.
Not only will they be more interested in chatting with you, but you’ll also get a better idea of who they really are once they are comfortable.
Make Yourself Available
Candidates often feel put on the spot when asked if they have any questions. To best accommodate them, give them your number for any questions they may think of after the interview.
A question they forgot to ask could be the determining factor between choosing you or your competitor so don’t be stingy with your contact information.
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Write Compelling Job Descriptions
Now that you know how to make candidates feel welcomed and warm, it’s time to tackle the logistical side of the hiring process.
Your job posting will be a candidate’s first impression of your company. To stand out and attract those high-quality candidates, it needs to be pretty impressive.
Beef up your job description by ensuring you use specific titles with a captivating summary of the job right off the bat. To avoid any confusion or unqualified applicant eating up your time, follow it up with the essentials of the job including their core responsibilities, hard and soft skills you require, and the day-to-day expectations.
The more information you can give in the description, the better chance you have of obtaining qualified applicants.
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Prioritize Skill Profiles
When reviewing resumes, remember that a great candidate isn’t necessarily the one who’s worked ‘ideal’ jobs in the past. In fact, the perfect person for the role may be completely unexpected!
Instead of hunting for that perfect resume with all of the t’s crossed and i’s dotted, narrow your focus on your candidates’ skillset. While little experience in a related role may sound like a downside this could actually mean they have fewer bad habits to break.
So don’t stress so much about their work history, after all, your company is so great to work for, they’ll want to stick around anyway!
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Leverage Sponsored Job Ads
With so many new roles posted online each day, it can be tricky to stand out above the others. Fortunately, sites like indeed have sponsored ad positions where you can pay to have your job listing appear at the top of the feed.
What’s even better is that you can tailor your sponsored ad to appear in front of qualified candidates who are already looking for the type of role you’re hiring for.
These top placement ads have a much higher apply rate, giving you more qualified candidates to choose from to ensure you get the best hire possible.
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Use Social Media
Your social media platform is the perfect place to recruit interested applicants who are already familiar with your company.
What’s even better is that candidates will be able to get an idea of your company before they even walk in the door. Posts about behind-the-scenes work are not only fun and interesting to your audience, but they also help build an appreciation and desire for future applicants to join your team.
You’ll be able to reach a broad range of your existing audience that may be interested or even know someone who would be interested in working for you. Plus, they already have a level of attachment to your brand so competitors are less of a threat!
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Promote From Within
While this may sound obvious, a lot of companies forget that the perfect candidate for the job could be someone who’s already familiar and dedicated to the company.
Before you open up to external applications, consider holding space for any existing employees who are interested in the job. Not only does this cut down on the hiring process, but it’s also a great incentive for new hires coming into the company.
A business that promotes within is highly appealing to entry-level employees and often encourages them to apply themselves more in an effort to move up!
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Consider Past Applicants
The unsuccessful candidates for past roles may not have been ideal for that position, but they could be the perfect fit for your latest opening.
Since you’ve already gone through the interview process with past applicants, these can be great resumes to revisit and reconsider. Consider who stood out in your last round of hiring and get in touch with the best of the best to see if they would still be interested in joining your team.
Since they’ve already expressed interest and you’ve established a relationship with them, you could actually cut down on the hiring process to save valuable time and money!
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Check Posted Resumes
Most online job sites have an option for job hunters to post their resume for viewing. This means that companies like yours have the opportunity to review resumes for applicants who haven’t even applied for your position.
By setting some basic criteria, you can actually develop recruiting strategies based on the skills you find in pre-posted resumes.
From here, you can contact that candidate for an interview and let them know that you feel they are ideal for the role. You’ll have the cream of the crop pick and applicants will be more inclined to hear you out because you’ve already expressed a genuine interest in hiring them.
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Develop an Employee Referral Program
Recommendations go a long way in the hiring world, so why not take advantage of your employee’s contacts by offering incentives for referrals.
Your employee referral program can include a number of different incentives such as a bonus for referred applicants who stay with the company past a certain amount of time. These programs encourage your existing employees to recommend truly awesome candidates.
Because their name is on the line (and a potential bonus), they tend to make a pretty solid effort to refer strong, reliable friends, family, or acquaintances that are ideal to work with. This can land you a great team that enjoys working together for just a small investment.
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Consider Remote Positions
The happenings of the last year have taught us that remote work is not only doable but extremely beneficial for both employees and employers. With this in mind, many job seekers are setting out to find remote-friendly opportunities that work with their lives.
If your company is able to offer a remote or even partially remote role, this could be a massive perk for potential candidates. In fact, you may even get stronger applications because of the highly desirable setup!
Beyond the time-freedom appeal, you’ll also be able to open up applications to a larger pool of location-independent applicants. This may improve your chances of finding someone with the right skill set for your needs.
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Utilize Virtual Interviewing and Hiring
In alignment with our ‘respect their time’ rule, you may find virtual interviewing and hiring to be highly beneficial.
Not only can you save time and money in the interviewing process, but you can also get a feel for how your potential employee presents themselves over phone or video. This can be great if the role you’re hiring for includes liaising with clients or any level of ‘phone professionalism’.
This is also an ideal format for those remote or partially remote jobs!
When it comes to the hiring process, you can simplify the procedure for both you and your applicant by adopting simple and effective onboarding software such as the system offered at https://WorkBright.com/employee-onboarding-software/.
This software makes it easier than ever before to bring on new staff and get them integrated into your systems without losing valuable time on training.
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Offer Competitive Rates
If you’re finding that your pool of applicants is less than ideal, you may need to reconsider your offer.
Because of the aforementioned skill shortage, businesses are ready and willing to offer whatever it takes to land the best employees. Unfortunately, this means your usual pay schedule may not be adequate enough to compete with fellow employers.
While raising your budget may not sound very beneficial, the level of employees that you attract with the higher salary may be enough to accelerate growth and increase your ROI.
If a budget increase is out of the question, insider what else you can offer to sweeten the deal and attract those saught after employees. This may be a better benefits package, extended holidays, or even a bonus structure. For best results, poll your existing employees to discover what they value most and leverage this information for new hires.
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Leverage Temp Agencies
One of the most overlooked staffing opportunities lies in ‘temp’ roles. Temp agencies feature employees that are quick learners with exceptional skill sets, so why not use their services to recruit the best employees out there?
By bringing on a temp, you’ll have the opportunity to see your potential employee in the role. This will give you an idea of how they learn and handle the daily activities without time-wasting ‘trial’ periods. Once they are performing the role, you can decide if you want to offer them the job on an ongoing basis. The bonus is they already know how to do it!
Beyond this, temp workers allow you to keep up with the workload while you’re searching for someone. So, even if they aren’t the perfect fit, the role won’t be sitting empty and piling up while you continue your recruiting process.
The Best Recruiting Strategies to Find Employees
From promoting within to simplifying your hiring process with onboarding software, we hope these recruiting strategies will help your unique business land the best employees. With the right listing, offer, and incentives, we’re confident you’ll find employees that will work hard to grow your business with you.
Want more tips and tricks for employment, business, and marketing? Check out our other article to discover all of the business news you need to excel in the year ahead.
