Finding the Right Talent for Your Company

While you may believe that trying to find employees for your company will be easy, it doesn’t mean that everyone you interview will be suitable for the role. If you own a company that needs highly skilled, talented individuals, then this can make recruitment harder. It might be that potential candidates are not noticing your advertisements, or that your employment package does not sway them. Whatever the reason, you need to start making it simpler to find the talent you want. Here are a few ideas that you can try to find and retain talented employees.

Are Your Expectations Realistic?

Before you start to find out why you can’t recruit, you need to examine what it is that you want. You will have an idea in mind about what you are looking for, but you need to be realistic about finding such a person. For example, if you are looking for someone with five years’ experience in a particular field, then not only are you restricting your potential candidates, you are also looking for people that most likely have good jobs already. Try to think about how you can train your employees so that you can recruit those that have just graduated or have limited experience.

Look to Mutual Connections

Sometimes those who know you best can help you find the person you want. Speak to former employees or business partners to find out if they know of anyone that might be suitable for the job. The good thing about using your contacts is that they know the types of people you like as employees so anyone they recommend will most likely be a good fit. As well as mutual connection, using social media sites like LinkedIn and Facebook can also be an effective way to locate people that might be looking for a job. LinkedIn, in particular, can also have an employee work history, so you can see at a glance what experience they have.

Give Current Employees an Incentive to Find Candidates

Your current employees can be some of the best recruiters you will ever have. There are many reasons why they would want to have good employees in the team. They know what it takes to do the job, and they know what you expect of them, so this knowledge gives them a good understanding of what you need. They also want the work to get easier, not harder, so recruiting someone that doesn’t fit the team will look badly on them. You can even offer some type of incentive to your existing staff to help you find the right talent. You can propose that for every person that they find who you hire, they will get a cash bonus. It will be another reason for your employees to want to find the right person.

Look Beyond Your Immediate Location

Technology has grown so much over recent years, that for some roles, you are no longer required to be in the same location as the rest of the company. The explosion of freelance workers has shown just how flexible remote working can be. If you are having issues trying to find the personnel you want nearby, then perhaps you should be looking further afield. If the job role demands that they work in the office or in the same location, then this doesn’t mean you can’t still look further afield. For some people, the idea of moving for a job doesn’t bother them, so you might just find the right person that way.

Encourage Workers to Post on Their Social Media

As well as looking for talented candidates for you, your employees can also help in other ways. Ask them to post on their news feeds about current hard to fill vacancies in your company. Your workers will no doubt have a different reach to you and your business, so it casts the net wider. All they need to do is post an informal message about a certain job and to contact them about it. If they get anyone asking about it, they can then pass on your contact details. As with other ways you might ask your employees to help, you can offer an incentive to them if they post the job on their feeds.

Find Out What Job Seekers Are Searching For

One of the reasons your job postings might be missed is if you do not include the relevant search terms. For example, the solar energy job market is growing fast, so there will be plenty of people looking to get into this field. However, if your ad doesn’t mention solar energy, no-one looking for this job will click on your post. There are many job sites which allow you to see what the most trending search terms are at the moment. It makes it far easier to see what candidates are looking for and where your ads are going wrong.

Research Your Competitors

Your rivals will be looking for new talent just like you, but they might be having more success than you are at finding and keeping their staff. By trying to find out what they are doing, you might be able to find and retain your workers as well. Try to see where they are advertising their vacancies and what is their criteria. If they are offering a lot of on the job training, then they will have a much larger pool of people to choose from. You should also look to see what incentives they are offering to keep their staff. You will probably find this out in their job description, but you don’t want to copy what they have mentioned. You need to find your own unique set of selling points that will encourage people to apply and stay.

Put Yourself Where the Candidates are

If you want to attract the right people, you need to find out where they are. A good way to find them is on social media such as LinkedIn and Facebook. Join a few groups related to your work and mention what you are looking for in the comments of related posts. You might be surprised to find that there might be people in there that are interested in your job. Another alternative is to pay for ads on Facebook and Twitter that you can use to target regions or the skills you want. These types of targeted ads are quite successful in finding the right people, and it saves you a lot of time searching through everyone.

Try a Paid Search Platform

If you are still struggling to find the right person, then you might have to start looking at paid search platforms. Some of them are centered on recruitment and can send your job ad to dozens of job boards. It allows you to get your ad out to as many places as possible without having to spend a lot of time. Many of these sites also allow you to search for specific characteristics on peoples resumes; then, when you have a list of them, you can message them directly about your vacancy.

Look to Hire from Within

Have you tried to look for a suitable candidate from within your staff? You might not think that your existing employees are what you need but think about the advantages they have over an external candidate. They are already familiar with the procedures of your company, and they know what you expect of them. They might not have all the skills you need, but can they be easily trained? Perhaps the cost of training them to meet your needs will be cheaper than a long recruitment campaign? It is worth looking at your staff, just in case there are some hidden talents that you were not aware existed.

Email Past Candidates

Although past candidates were not selected for a reason, that doesn’t mean that you won’t want to hire them on this occasion. For example, if you had several candidates that were close to each other on a previous campaign, then they might be perfect for your new vacancy. Try sending them an email asking them if they are still interested in applying to your company. Even if they have found a new job, your position might be what they have been looking for. Doing something like this is also a good reason why you should look at your employee benefits. If one of your previous candidates has joined a rival company, then your benefits might be tempting enough for them to come over to you. It is also a good idea when recruiting to ask candidates if they are happy to stay on your lists just in case something like this happens in the future.

Recruiting can be a long and tiring process, especially if you are not attracting the types of people you want. That is why you need to think outside of the normal recruitment areas to find those that might not be looking for a new job. Sometimes, these people are the best ones for your company.

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