Recruitment Strategies to Attract High Potential, High Performing Employees - EmployeeConnect HRIS
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Recruitment Strategies

Recruitment Strategies to Attract High Potential, High Performing Employees

Do you think it is enough to simply post a job listing on your company website and be hopeful that the dream candidate would apply at some point? Well, certainly not! To attract apt and excellent talent, you need to be active, or otherwise, somebody else will take away that dream employee of yours in a whiff. In order to stay at the top of your game, you need to ensure that your recruitment strategies are up to date.

Are you in Tune with Social Recruiting?

Recruitment these days revolve around social media. According to the data provided by Jobvite, 73% of recruiters have utilised social media to hire candidates. According to Altimeter Group, LinkedIn, and Jobvite, 44% of recruiters, were of the opinion that by resorting to social recruiting, it has increased both the quality and quantity of candidates. Companies which are socially engaged are more likely to attract ace talent.

This does not come across as surprising since you can learn much more about your prospective employees from the social media than a resume. This is primarily because you have access to their personality traits on Facebook and you can also view their endorsements on LinkedIn. It helps you to gauge if they potentially fit into your company culture.

Let’s take a look at how you can use social media optimally. Each social media channel has its own unique feature which you would want to leverage for driving maximum benefit out of it.

 

LinkedIn

  1. Are you looking forward to being able to access the entire network of professionals on LinkedIn? Well, it is certainly feasible for the price. Based on your requirements, LinkedIn offers a couple of selected plans which facilitates you to personally connect with your perfect candidate. You may want to try out LinkedIn’s Recruiter Lite version initially. It is relatively easy on your pocket and yet has most of the features that you need.
  2. Similar to Facebook, you can also look forward to target candidates with ads on LinkedIn. People share all about their professional lives on LinkedIn and you can use this information to target individuals with specific job titles at specific companies.
  3. Learn to take advantage of groups on LinkedIn. It gives you access to an entire group of people who are involved in doing exactly what you are looking for. For instance, if you are looking forward to recruiting an inbound marketer, you should join the group for Inbound Marketers on LinkedIn. This group has around 115,000 members. Groups are useful as they are pretty niche and they help you while you are looking for a particular type of candidate.

 

Twitter

  1. Learn to make the optimum use of your network. If you have an excellent job requirement, you may ask your followers to share it across. However, just refrain from doing it too often, as it gets annoying.
  2. Use hashtags (#) wherever you can, as the symbol ‘#’ when used before every word counts. For instance, if you need to post a marketing job in Sydney, consider using hashtags such as #Marketing #Job in # Sydney. In case you feel you need a little guidance on which hashtags to use, you may try using tools like Hashtracking.
  3. Learn the local lingo while you are posting your job requirement. Look out for colloquialisms. For instance, a developer on LinkedIn may write Ruby on Rails, while on Twitter the same individual may write RoR.

 

Facebook

  1. People share a lot on Facebook these days. So you may try out Facebook ads to target the right candidate. The robust ad platform of Facebook allows you to exactly target the kind of individual that you want, and you can also remove anyone who isn’t your target. The Facebook ad platform also facilitates you to retarget ads towards individuals who have already visited your Careers page previously. Since you are aware that these individuals are interested in your company, by using Facebook retargeting you can ensure that they keep seeing your brand and it stays at the back of their minds as a gentle reminder.
  2. Use apps which allow you to add a Jobs tab to the top of your Company page. For instance, LinkUp is one such app. It helps you to project your job openings to people who are interested in your company and its products.
  3. Create a job specific page on Facebook. A wonderful example of recruitment success is L’Oreal’s Facebook Careers page. This page has around 215000 Likes and has become a dedicated zone for job openings, sharing behind the scenes pictures to give an insight into the company culture, and also answer questions from potential candidates.

 

Pinterest

  1. Highlight your company’s culture on Pinterest. Owing to its visual appeal, Pinterest is one of the perfect places where you can showcase your company’s culture, your company’s brand, and your employees. This will help to attract individuals who could really fit into your company’s culture. You should pin photos of team lunches, annual company parties, your office space, latest projects, and happy hours.
  2. You can ask the employees of your company to represent themselves and their work on Pinterest by adding their personal touch to the board. Using Pinterest, you can expose your brand to a new audience and also share your company’s culture in an authentic manner.

 

Instagram or Vine

Use Instagram or Vine to explore portfolios of potential candidates. While candidates do not have their actual formal portfolios on Instagram or Vine, however, you can find snippets of their work if you know the right places to look for. For instance, if you are looking to hire a content producer or a videographer, you should search different channels in Vine to find individuals with relevant experience in creating content for different genres such as food, travel, comedy, sports and so on.

Similarly, if you are looking for a graphic designer, illustrator, interior designer, chef, or artist, you should search for hashtags on Instagram to view samples of their work. Use simple hashtags such as #veganchef or #interiordesign.

Start off by trying a couple of these social networking recruitment strategies with one social network first. Once you are comfortable, you can ramp up to the next social network.

 

Some Tried and Tested Creative Recruitment Strategies

While digital strategies are certainly the in thing these days, but they are not the only strategies that you need for recruitment. Let’s take a look at some of these interesting tried and tested recruitment strategies which you can add to your kitty:

  1. Offering referral incentives have always worked successfully. So inspire your existing employees to refer their ex-colleagues, friends, and relatives by offering lucrative incentives. Your present employees are quite well aware of your company’s culture. So they are apt for picking up candidates who will fit into the company’s existing culture. Offer your employees either a monetary incentive, or some perks, or free lunches.
  2. While it may sound strange to you, but try to have a policy for paying new recruits who are not a cultural fit to leave the organisation. This strategy helps the company to clean out misfit employees and also helps to avoid polluting the company culture which has been built with a lot of hard work.
  3. It is a good idea to sponsor and organise an open house at regular intervals. Invite potential candidates to your organisation and have an open house discussion over drinks and snacks. This is a great idea to lure a lot of interested potential candidates.
  4. Try and attend some other types of events other than job fairs. For instance, you can look up sites like meetup.com or even your local chamber of commerce calendar and make a note of what events are taking place in and around your area. Try to attend a couple of these events, as it provides you with a great opportunity to network with relevant professionals who may be just your ideal candidate.
  5. Remain open to considering past candidates. Many times during recruitment drives we come across some interesting candidates who may have impressed us but did not end up getting hired as he or she did not possess the right skills for that role at that point in time. However, there may be a scenario now when your needs have changed, and he or she would have been a perfect fit for the role. If such a candidate shows up, you must remain open to re-consider him or her.
  6. Are you looking for young and vibrant candidates who are kicked about marketing? Or are you looking for candidates who are ready to dive into the entertainment industry? If yes, you should look towards local universities and colleges and support student clubs and events. By doing so, you will pique their interest, and you will be on top of their minds when they are on the lookout for jobs.
  7. There are times during recruitment when you come across an individual with an amazing personality and a willing and open attitude, but he or she may not be quite up to the mark regarding the skills that you need. In the case of such candidates with good potential, you must consider training them or supporting them with their continued education.
  8. Project your company’s work culture by talking about it. You should learn to highlight and leverage the interesting things about the work culture of your organisation which makes you stand apart from your competitors. For instance, when you share with your potential candidates that you are giving away 1% of your product to nonprofits and 1% of your time to community organisations, it perks them up.
  9. Try and have interviews in an informal setting instead of a formal setting. In a formal setting, candidates are usually nervous, and they over analyse every answer that they provide. If you have your interview casually over coffee, it enables you to view them in a new light and build a personal connect with them. You are also more likely to gain valuable insights over a casual interview and find the right cultural fit candidate.
  10. Offer perks which provide value add to employees. Some organisations may not have the budget to offer free lunches every day, or offer weekly workplace happy hours, or offer free parking every day. While these perks are certainly fun, do they provide value to the candidates? So instead of focusing on the concept of “free”, you should consider what’s more important for your employees. For instance, if you offer your employees opportunities for career growth or offer strong mentorship programs, these have a direct impact on the employees.

 

The Power of Word of Mouth

There may be people who do not have any kind of contact with a candidate, yet they may impact a candidate’s decision to join an organisation. Hence the public image of your organisation is of great importance.

  1. A company needs to be wary of its behaviour, as, in this age of social media, any kind of derogatory news spreads like wildfire within seconds. It can lead to creating a bad reputation for your company which may continue to haunt in various ways especially when it spreads via word of mouth. It may even impact the decision of potential applicants.

A survey conducted by CR Magazine and Allegis Talent 2 revealed how people are impacted when they hear about an organisation in a negative manner:

  • 75% of individuals were of the opinion that they would never want to be associated with a company which has earned a bad reputation, even if they remain unemployed.
  • Individuals who say that they may accept a job offer with a company of poor reputation only if they are paid significantly more money.
  • One-quarter of individuals were of the opinion that they would join only if they are offered more than 50% pay raise.
  • 15% of individuals were of the opinion that they would demand double their salary from such a company.
  • 87% of individuals said that they would immediately consider leaving the company for a better one which has an excellent reputation.

Hence if your company cuts a poor public image, you should not be surprised if your new hires either change the company soon or most of them may not join in the first place.

  1. The reputation of an organisation is not about headlines or scams. It can be created from unexpected sources as well. You may be thinking that only a recruiter may create an impression on the applicants, but the fact is that word of mouth may spread through the applicants as well, who would go ahead and share their bad experiences. According to the survey conducted by Career Builder:
  • Around three-fourth of these applications would go ahead and tell their friends and family.
  • 17% of these applicants will go ahead and post on social media.
  • 6% of such applicants will blog about their bad experience.

If the communication of a company is poor during the application process and the interviewer was rude, it may end up getting shared in the online world, where news and impressions are created within seconds. It is there freely available to be read by someone who may have planned to get hired in your company.

  1. Lastly, the most important opinion of an organisation is formed by its present employees. Even though your organisation may have gone the digital way for recruitment, yet the present employees still play an important role in getting new hires. In fact, employee referrals are one of the highest and significant sources of getting new hires to an organisation.

Hence it is very important that you take care of employee engagement and satisfaction as the opinion of your employees can shape the future of your company. Unhappy employees are much more likely to go around telling potential candidates about the organisation in a bad way, and you will end up losing the talent that you wish to hire.

So, allow your employees a chance to provide you feedback, and then you must act on their concerns before it makes them unhappy and leads to bad mouth. Recruitment strategies go beyond sky high salaries and attractive perks. The actual way to attract top talent is to utilise resources like social media and use your creativity to stand out from the competition.

onboarding new hires

Byron Conway
byron@employeeconnect.com

Content Coordinator at EmployeeConnect