Recruitment Tips for Securing Top Candidates

Hiring talent remains one of the top priorities for CEOs, with chief executives citing a lack of skilled candidates as the biggest threat to business. With the right recruitment tips and tricks, you’ll help your business find not only good workers but the right workers for you.

Hiring the right workers leads to increased productivity, improved retention and reduced turnover. As a result, your company can continue to grow organically and evolve. Why is finding top talent such an important investment? 

It’s simple: Good workers drive success, ipso facto companies with good workers are successful.

It may be simple but it isn’t always easy. Three-quarters of employers report difficulties in finding skilled candidates. Getting a hold of someone who meets technical requirements and is also a cultural fit is tough! This is why strong recruitment practices give companies a competitive edge.

6 Hiring & Recruitment Tips to Attract Top Talent

Here are our top tips for recruitment. With these, you can fill more positions with higher quality candidates and decrease the time required to hire.

1. Build good candidate pipeline.

Before even creating a job posting, businesses need to do the groundwork to build a reputation as a place where employees want to work. Reputation is more important than ever: 55% of potential candidates will decide against applying to a position if they read a negative review of a company’s hiring process. Making sure your company’s online presence is reflective of its values and strengths is the best way to entice applicants and recruits.

When you do have an open position to advertise, use social media to your advantage by seeking out passive candidates, that is, candidates who are not actively seeking new positions.  Broaden your search by perusing LinkedIn or posting in professional groups on Facebook for a richer source of candidates.

2. Implement diverse hiring practices.

One of the best way to recruit new employees is often through your network. Ask current employees for referrals or get them out to events where they can act as brand ambassadors. By tapping into communities and connections which already exist around you, you can save time and find the perfect fit.

However, recruiters should remain conscious that this kind of practice may be biased toward well-networked applicants. In order to avoid the influence of unconscious bias in the hiring process, companies may use a blind resume policy or utilize very objective metrics which leave less room for bias.

3. Optimize employee recruitment with technology.

Given the ever-increasing prevalence of technological tools, it’s best practice for companies to expedite the recruitment process with recruitment software or applicant tracking systems. Slow-moving recruiting practices not only demotivate candidates but also unnecessarily bottleneck company growth.

By some estimates, each vacancy can cost a company $500 a day. Time is money! Fortunately, you can save both by keeping things organized and efficient. Formalizing the hire before too much time elapses will also make sure your top talent doesn’t get poached by someone else. 

Data analytics can be used to predict whether a candidate will be a good fit, to keep track of strong candidates for future positions, and to recruit proactively rather reactively. Data can also be leveraged to help businesses to understand the shortcomings in their own hiring processes and identify snags. By keeping track of metrics such as application completion rate, qualified candidate rate, cost of hire, and candidate response rate, you can streamline your recruitment process.

Never miss out again on a hiring opportunity only because of human error! One of our key tips on recruitment is that a little automation in your recruitment will go a long way.

4. Pro Hiring Tip: Know what you’re looking for in potential candidates.

It is extremely important to be clear about needs and expectations from the outset of the process of recruitment. Although it seems straightforward, too many recruiters haven’t taken enough time to nail down the exact requirements of the job and the corresponding attributes needed in candidates. Figure this out early and keep your messaging consistent.

Headhunting tip: Don’t get requirement needs confused with your wish list. Be realistic about how much experience the job requires (some companies need to be reminded entry-level pay doesn’t usually entice those with 10 years experience) and which competencies are must-haves and which can be learned after the fact.

The interview process provides a great opportunity to see how a potential hire will fulfill the requirements and fit into the workplace dynamic. Pose situational interview questions with the demands of open positions in mind, to elicit how interviewees will respond in day-to-day scenarios. Encourage them to call on specific examples of past experiences; this is the best way to determine how they will act in the future. The right interview questions can offer insight into how a potential employee spends time and energy. Take good notes! This is your chance to find top talent that fits your goals.

5. Spruce up your job offer.

It’s time to keep up the Joneses. One of the best recruitment tips is if you want top talent, you have to make it worth their while. The good news is that it’s not all about money. Before employees sign that job offer letter, they want to know that they’re joining a great company. Studies show that potential candidates can be lured over by four “greats”:

–Great company– Employees want to work for a company with an exceptional reputation. What makes your company great? Focus on transparency and values, effectiveness and business results, or contributions to society. Show potential hires what makes the company unique.

–Great job– Employees don’t want to feel like a cog in the machine. They are seeking jobs that offer opportunities for personal fulfillment and career progression. Be sure to showcase what is interesting about the work you do. Let potential hires know that you are investing in them and their growth. 

–Great rewards– Ok, this one is about money. Competitive salaries are key to attracting top talent, along with other benefits like paid time off and health care. Perks help too. Some businesses offer daycare, pay for employees to volunteer or subsidize gym memberships. Perks that are reflective of your company’s values will be the most appealing.

–Great leaders- Everyone wants to be a part of something bigger. Wow your potential hires with your leader’s charisma, or simply get them excited about the company’s goals and missions. Be clear on your core values and potential hires will be impressed that your business has such a strong identity, and momentum all its own.

6. Trust your gut.

One of the best hiring tips is that a good cultural fit is even more important than a skill fit. With that said, finding an employee who gets your company culture, jives with coworkers, and can hit it off with the team right away is key.

Experts recommend that if you are choosing between two candidates, one who has the skills but not the culture and one who has the culture but fewer skills, go with the cultural fit. Skills can be learned; culture often cannot. Besides, a better cultural fit will be more likely to stick around– which is all the better for your bottom line, because the costs of recruitment can be high!

Hiring quality candidates is always a struggle. But Factorial’s all-in-one HRIS can help! A business is only as strong as its employees, and employees are only as strong as the recruitment efforts which found them. With these recruitment tips, you are sure to find the best fit for the position in no time!

Written by Valerie Slaughter; Edited by Tanya Lesiuk