Your employees are the faces, hands, and heart of your business. In this series, we will review proven strategies that will help you identify opportunities in your recruiting and hiring process. In the first part of this series, we will discuss how to attract the highest quality applicants. Next, we will review some strategies for nurturing them through the hiring process, developing a solid recruiting plan, and ensuring you are evaluating the correct metrics.
Here are some basic questions you can ask yourself to determine if you are truly doing everything you can to attract the best talent:
Are My Job Postings Compelling?One sure-fire way to attract candidates and nurture your hiring process is to pay close attention to the information in your job postings. Are your job postings exciting? Or are they merely a refurbished long, nebulous job description? Do they answer the question “why would I want to work here?” to a candidate? If not, your best candidates will look elsewhere. Give the posting a compelling title. Get creative. Stay away from boring HR speak and long lists of knowledge, skill, and ability requirements. Tell them what they will be doing, and ask yourself “if I were to apply here, what would I want to know about this job that would get me excited about this opportunity?”
Have I Communicated the Culture of the Organization to Potential Candidates? One of the most important things you can do to differentiate yourself in the way you attract candidates is to define your culture and promote your values. Make sure every step in the hiring process and every communication you have with potential candidates supports this. Be intentional. Your best candidates want to know your distinct beliefs and values and in a way that resonates with them.
Are Candidates Given a Realistic Job Preview? A realistic job preview informs candidates about the demanding and challenging parts of the job in addition to what’s rewarding and motivating. Giving candidates this information as early as possible in the hiring process is one of the best things you can do to ensure their expectations match with the reality of the job. Matching candidates’ expectations to the reality of the job has been shown to significantly reduce the first-year turnover and increase job satisfaction.
Do I Know What Recruiting Channels Work Best or How Effective My Sourcing Strategies Are?Are you casting a wide-net with inexpensive recruiting sources (LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, internal employee referral programs)? Where are your candidates coming from and how effective each is each of those sources? Knowing where your best candidates are coming from is a return on your investment of time and effort in the hiring process.
Is My Website and Application Process Mobile-Optimized? When you search for a business on the internet, have you ever thought to yourself “why are they ranked the way they are? Why does Company A come up first on this list and Company B come up next, and so on?” A lot of it has to do with search engine optimization (SEO); however Google has recently changed its algorithms that rank websites. If your website, landing pages, blogs, online application, etc. are not mobile-optimized, this means that when a candidate searches for your business, they may see it way down in the search screen; which means they may not see it at all. Even Google developers specifically said that there would be a “significant impact on search results” with these new algorithms. This not only can seriously impact your bottom line, but the quality of candidates you get as well. A big part of attracting the best candidates is to ensure you are easy to find!
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