is recruiting the right people proving difficult this year?
You’re not alone.
Recruiting in 2023 is a challenge. LinkedIn’s ‘Global Trends Report’ reveals that due to the economic climate, employees are pursuing opportunities to upskill and grow in their current roles rather than risk looking elsewhere. This makes attracting passive job seekers and tempting people away from their current jobs to join your team more challenging than ever. Your next recruitment campaign needs to be spot-on, and this is where we can help.
We’ve compiled our top tips to help you attract new employees this year.
Spend time on your job advert
It sounds obvious but your job advert reflects your business and needs to sell your vacancy to potential applicants. The advert needs to highlight the benefits of working for your company and should have a compelling headline to attract attention. It can help to approach this like you would a product ad, where you create a sense of urgency – and a fear of missing out.
Make sure your campaign is inclusive
Using inclusive language in your job advert will make it attractive to a wider range of candidates. Ideally, you want to make your entire recruitment process inclusive, from that initial advert to the shortlisting, interviews and final candidate choice. This will help you to create a more diverse team. Working with a diverse group of people helps with problem-solving by offering different perspectives. More diverse teams can be more creative too, with varied life experiences to draw upon for ideas.
You can find out more about creating an inclusive recruitment strategy in our previous blog: 5 ways to improve diversity and inclusion in your recruitment strategy.
Use content marketing to attract candidates
Sounds a little left-field, using content marketing in a recruitment campaign, but studies have found that people engage with this kind of content for up to eight times longer than with traditional advertising. Using content marketing gives you an opportunity to tell people why your business is a great place to work. It puts candidates first. They get to take insightful information from your content, which in turn highlights your credentials as a reliable and desirable employer.
Our blog ‘how to attract the right candidate’ is packed with ideas on the types of things you can talk about on your website careers page if you have one. It’s worth reading as these are great ideas to include in your content marketing too.
Increase the visibility of your job postings
There are more recruitment advertising options than ever before, so make sure you use the right ones for your roles. Review your previous campaigns and see which channels generated the best results. But at the same time, don’t let what you did in the past prevent you from trying new approaches. Advertising on social media, for example, can be a valuable yet inexpensive way of reaching your ideal candidates. As with any campaign, we’d always recommend a multi-platform approach for the best results.
Create an effective shortlist
Shortlisting candidates is one of the most successful ways to optimise the recruitment process. Not only does it improve the candidate experience, it also cuts down the amount of time to hire and leads you to the best possible person for the job advertised.
To find out more about effective shortlisting, take a moment to read our blog: ‘how to hire the right person for your role’.
Get to know candidates at the interview
It’s more than likely the people who have made your shortlist will have similar qualifications or skills, so the interview provides the opportunity to ask questions to discover what makes them different. There is more to a candidate than their ability and experience. The questions you ask can really help you uncover skills, personality and ambition that might not have been apparent in the job application.
Our blog ‘what recruiters must look for in job interviews’ lists five questions our recruitment experts recommend you ask at interview, as well as the tactics you can use to uncover the answers.
Finally, to give your business the edge, make sure you’re sending out the right signals to potential employees.
Make sure your business is attractive to potential candidates, even if you’re not hiring
As recruitment is difficult at the moment, it is worth investing in how your business is seen by potential candidates, regardless of whether you’re hiring right now. Things like refreshing your D&I policy, investing in training your team, working on your business reviews and updating your HR policies can help make your business an attractive environment to work in. Don’t be afraid to shout about the positives of working in your business. Social media, content marketing and your website are all great places to promote your business as a great place to work.
If you want to find out more about making your business attractive to potential employees, check out this blog: ‘5 things candidates look for in a company in 2023’.
