Attracting and retaining top talent has become a huge challenge for most companies these days. This is not to say that before the COVID-19 pandemic this wasn’t an issue at all, but since then the power dynamics have changed, and now employees have all the leverage when it comes to negotiating compensation as well as benefits.
Before 2020, all a company needed to hire the perfect person for the job was simply to put out a job advertisement and then they could sit back and watch the applications pile up. This simply does not work any more. Now, companies have to completely rethink their whole talent attraction and retention strategies to be able to stay competitive.
Here are some ideas to help your company gain and retain top talent:
Attract active and passive candidates
Posting a job advert in all the right places is a great way of reaching the people who are actively looking for a job, but this can’t be your entire strategy when it comes to recruiting top talent. You will want to find a way to also include passive candidates to your attraction efforts. This means looking for people who are not looking for a job but might just be a perfect fit at your organization, and then working to build a robust relationship with them. Using LinkedIn and other professional networks is a great way to go about this task.
Know and promote your company’s strengths
Of course you already know that you work at a great place, but you have to find a way to communicate exactly what makes your organization so great in order to attract top talent. A fantastic way to start is to ask current employees why they like working there, and what makes the company culture special. Get ready to be surprised and also to get very different answers depending on who you ask. For some, the compensation and benefits are the most important aspect, others may enjoy the challenging work they do, for others the work/life balance they are able to achieve at your company is what keeps them happy there.
Once you have all this information you will be able to create better job descriptions, and more effective marketing campaigns to attract top talent.
Empower company ambassadors
Leveraging your internal team is an innovative way of attracting and retaining talent. Some strategies that help achieve this are implementing an employee referral program, featuring employee testimonials on career pages, social media, and job listings.
Focus on the hiring experience
Your great marketing efforts, spot on job listings, and excellent company culture won’t help you attract new talent if your hiring experience is lacking. So it is a great idea to focus on creating a positive experience throughout the whole recruitment process. From the very first email exchange between you and a candidate, you should strive to create a great experience for them. Communicating clearly, managing expectations, and delivering on your promises are key elements when you are building a better hiring experience.
When you think about it, it is not that attracting and retaining top talent have become more difficult than ever. It is only that the old strategies that used to work effortlessly have suddenly become obsolete. Once you rethink and adapt your recruitment strategies to the current labor market, top talent will once again flood your HR department with applications.
