In a hypercompetitive market, disrupted by technology and a myriad of other evolvements, you will find the lines of communications between hiring companies and candidate communications ever changing.
In that we are now facing a candidate-driven market, sourcing your next great employee requires a bit more ingenuity than it did a couple of years ago. Best practices that once relied upon candidates clamoring to your door are now superseded with initiatives that magnetize qualified workers to your opportunity.
As such, assessing opportunities for sourcing and recruitment improvements when preparing your new year’s strategies is essential. Below are five strategies you may consider when planning for 2019.
Market Your Enterprise Value
For example, cultivate employee advocates within your enterprise whose purpose, beyond their own full-time role, includes espousing the value of your company. This can help pull others into your workplace sphere. By building strategies for social media, whereby promoters sell the advantages of working at ABC company based on culture or benefits or awesome compensation plans or a combination of items, you may find your company’s recruiting power increase.
Employees listen to and are influenced by their friends and former colleagues whom they trust. If your employees continually are posting positive status updates on their Facebook, Instagram or LinkedIn stream regarding an awesome boss or exciting project, they are advocating your brand to the next great candidate.
By strategically assigning advocates who will address key aspects of your culture, compensation, benefits and other attributes of their working experience, you expand your reach to the hundreds of thousands of social networking users, many who are looking for their next great gig.
[Related: What Is Employee Engagement & Why Does It Matter]
Leverage Your Culture and/or Build a Better Culture
And, speaking of culture, that could be a best sourcing and recruiting practice topic all its own. By taking a hard look inward, you may analyze whether your culture wins the award for a Best Places to Work organization or is destined for the Worst Places to Work list.
If the latter, then you might want to do some major introspection followed by a transformation strategy. Having a negative culture is a recruiting repellent, while uplifting cultures embolden otherwise passive candidates to consider making the leap.
Companies still steeped in the old-school, dictatorial culture and/or one where leadership’s attitude indicates you should be ‘grateful’ simply to have a job, risk turning off motivated talent eager to be part of a team where performance and positive attitudes are rewarded and cultivated.
Solidify Your Values and Overall Value Proposition + Then Market Them as An Advantage
Know your values; reshape them if they need a revamp.
If your values currently are attractive and embraced by your team members, then begin selling them to your target candidates. Bain & Company, who earned the #1 top spot in Glassdoor’s 2019 Best Places to Work “lives and breathes” its values according to more than one employee review. Underscoring their value proposition are initiatives in producing quality results and expectations that their employees do hard work. They also provide an “incredible place to grow and make an impact,” where you can find committed colleagues and rely upon a supportive environment.
[Related: How to Give Thanks for High Performing Employees]
Get Leadership Involved
Moreover, leadership executives increasingly are becoming technologically active, including engaging with their own employees on various social networking platforms, such as tagging and commending employees for a job well done. Strategies also may include publishing a variety of posts that showcase their collaborative and welcoming culture as well as their social good initiatives out in the community and various other benefits that could draw in potential candidates.
Pursue the Candidate in Advance of Need
In an employee’s market, companies who reach out ahead of the curve—ahead of the actual need for hiring, may gain a recruiting advantage. By proactively researching and engaging top talent via inquisitive two-way conversations, employers can unearth top candidate needs along with building a database of potential future workers.
Moreover, they can spur otherwise head-down professionals into the sphere of what-if thinking: “What if I considered an opportunity with better benefits, a more contemporary culture or a more invigorating mission?”
Whether you call the above strategies recruitment marketing, inbound marketing, employer branding or a variety of other terms, the bottom line is that sourcing and recruiting the top candidates in today’s market involves intentional strategies to set your company apart. It also involves researching and assessing the right-fit candidates who fit the culture and values you seek. By taking a proactive approach, courting your candidates and proactively marketing your company’s value proposition, you can stimulate your sourcing and recruiting initiatives for 2019.
