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Five tips that will help you find the best talent

It’s a buyers market

A client recently described the current recruiting environment  as a ‘buyers’ market. We understand the sentiment – candiates are no longer desperate for a job, they are discerning about which jobs they will apply for.

It’s not easy finding the right candidates at times of high employment and the cost of taking on the wrong person can be high – potentially many thousands of pounds invested in recruitment, on boarding, training plus the hidden consequential costs of unhappy colleagues and customers (not to mention the cost of re-recruitment).

Here are our five tips for staying ahead of the curve at a time when employment rates are high and candidates are in the driving seat.

1. Be creative

More and more of the best employers are telling us that they will find or adapt roles for the best talent. When they recognise that a candidate has the qualities they need, they are prepared to invest in ‘technical’ training to ensure they don’t miss out on the opportunity to bring in people that can make a long term contribution to the goals of the business.

2. Be decisive

In a ‘buyers’ market, more than ever you have to be prepared to take action and avoid losing candidates because of slow follow up. Good candidates have choices and lack of timely follow up can suggest indifference and discourtesy. It is the number one frustration candidates have with employers that is shared on social media. Don’t become a bad news story!

3. Communicate your employer brand

Use attractive language that highlights the benefits and rewards of working in your organisation. Instead of just listing 15 things that candidates must have in order to apply, take the opportunity to hook candidates and convince them that they ‘have’ to work for you. Communicate positive messages on social media and make sure the ‘work for us’ pages on your web site a kept up to date and inspire potential employees.

4. It’s not always about ‘fit’

If you always do what you always did you will always get what you always got. Sometimes you need to bring in people who will challenge the existing culture and bring new ideas. Don’t automatically dismiss good people because they might not ‘fit in’ – they might just bring the energy you need to move your business to the next level.

5. Apply some TLC

Make your recruitment process candidate friendly by using some TLC – Thinking Like a Candidate. Put yourself in the shoes of a potential employee and ask yourself if your recruitment process is candidate friendly or if it there just to make your life easier. Remember that every person that goes through your recruitment process, whether you take them on or not, has the potential to share their experience far and wide. Treat candidates as, hopefully, you treat your best customers.

Recruiting the right people has never been easy and it’s even more difficult right now. Investing more effort in these five tips should help.

Tricia Hay and David Tovey

Want help with how to attract the best candidates? Contact tricia.hay@first-base.co.uk

Why should I work for you?

Establishing your Employer Brand

By Tricia Hay and David Tovey

The ability to attract and retain the best talent in the market is key for any organisation, but never more so than in highly competitive sectors where niche skill sets are in high demand.

Right now there is fierce competition for the best ‘talent’, employment levels are high and candidates are ever more discerning about which employers they will consider joining.

What is an employer brand?

“Employer brand is what people say about your reputation as employer when you are not in the room”

Employer brand refers to the perceptions that key stakeholders, and specifically current and potential employees, have of your company, business or organisation. It is about how they view the company; from how you conduct yourselves in the market, through to what they think it would be like to work for you. An effective employer brand presents your organisation as a good employer and a great place to work and can, as a result, help with recruitment, retention and generally affect market perception of your company.

A clear employer brand offers significant benefits to an organisation. It can significantly improve job application rates and put your company and provide a wide pool of top candidates to choose from. In tight recruitment markets, where competition for the best talent is fierce, it can also help keep an organisation top of mind, make your company stand out in a crowded market and provide compelling reasons to join your company rather than going elsewhere.

It’s about retention too

In organisations where values, culture and desired behaviours have been deeply embedded across the organisation, employers are more likely to benefit from an increased level of engagement from employees. Improved employee engagement and motivation has a well-established link shown to greater productivity and higher retention rates; all of which contribute to retaining skills and knowledge, and ultimately improving bottom line results.

Increased engagement with a brand also helps to build employee loyalty, thus reducing the risk of losing your best people to competitors, and avoiding the financial implications of recruiting and on-boarding their replacements.

With such significant benefits it isn’t surprising that employers across all sectors and of all sizes are investing in developing and more effectively communicating their employer brand.

Establishing your brand

Questions to consider when establishing your employer brand include:

When you have a clear understanding of the above you can start to build a picture of what reputation you want to communicate as an employer and, even more importantly, ensure that this is fully embedded into the culture of the business.

 If you would like to know more about how First-Base can help you develop your employer brand contact tricia.hay@first-base.co.uk

Employer Brand in the Social Media Age

Finding the most skilled and talented individuals with the right attitude to help grow our businesses has never been easy. At a time of high employment and high candidate expectations – whether recruiting permanent or temporary staff; it has never been more important to focus on your reputation as an employer.

Just as a company has a ‘brand’ designed to reflect what customers can expect of its products or services; a company has an employer brand that reflects what employees can expect of its employment practices. The best and most profitable customers are attracted by a brand that can be trusted to deliver on its marketing promises and the best talent is attracted by an employer that can be trusted to fulfill the promises made in a recruitment campaign or at interview.

In any economy there are people ‘desperate’ for a job who might accept any role that comes their way. But these candidates are too often not the ideal people to fill the roles that businesses have available. The best candidates at all levels have choices, they are discerning, not desperate.

Put simply, the businesses with the best employer brands attract more applications from the best candidates. Companies that appear in The Times Top 100 Best Companies for instance, enter the competition because they know that being recognized as a good employer has a direct effect on recruitment and ultimately bottom line results.

Instant reputations

It used to be that an employer’s reputation was disseminated just by word of mouth. Today, with the availability of multiple social media channels, experiences and reputation, good or bad can be shared instantly with many thousands of connections. One of those connections could be just the person you are looking for.

The first place a candidate checks out when you run a recruitment campaign will be your company web site, where your ‘brand’ is exhibited for all to see. That web site has probably been carefully crafted by marketers to tell the story of your business as well as its products and services. It may have a recruitment section that potential candidates will view to get a feel for your attitudes as an employer.

The next place candidates go to are their social media contacts (evidence shows that people trust what their social networks say more than they trust what a business says) to find out if anyone has experience of working for you or even being interviewed by you. Just like people might use Trip Advisor – they will also check out on line sites such as ‘Glass Doors’ to see if you have been mentioned by past and present employees.

There is a new breed of candidates who are part of Generation C (Generation Connected) and it is generation that has no age limits. They know how to access information and there is plenty of information out there for them to find – whether you have an employer brand strategy or not.

Of course people also still use word of mouth ‘off line’ as well. In the Students Union if they have been on a graduate placement or in the pub after a day’s work, people with experience of working for you (or just being interviewed by you) will share their experiences. And have you ever wondered what reputation as an employer you have with recruitment consultancies?

The great news is that you can decide whether the experiences shared are positive or negative. Businesses often invest heavily in branding their business in order to attract customers. Today, the most successful businesses, invest in their employee brand to ensure they attract the best candidates.

David Tovey
International Speaker, Consultant and Coach
Non Exec Director – First Base Employment

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