If you are looking to attract the best candidates for your start-up, or established brand, you know that you need a multi pronged approach to do it. Your candidates look for several strong reasons to work with you. How do you convince the ‘chosen’ one to choose you? The answer lies in speaking to their aspirations.

Appealing to what they value at this point of their life and career, while also offering a promising future will make your offer undeniable. “But, how do you do this right?”, you ask. You need a multi pronged approach to position yourself as a people-first organisation that values talent, being respectful to all candidates, set clear expectations and carve out a path that tempts them to walk with you.

What if we told you that you can all this with only a few simple steps? Attracting the best candidates can be accomplished with the right mindset, tools, people and techniques. We will walk you through the top 10 strategies to attract candidates in recruitment, so that you can find, screen and bring onboard your future pillars with ease.

How Important is Finding the Right Talent?

People are the most important assets of your organisation and it’s far from exaggeration. The right people, when inspired by the leader, deliver to their potential, have the curiosity to learn, find solutions to any problem and keep their eye on the ball. They are self starters, ready to learn, ask for help and collaborates with other team members.

Although no one is perfect, the right talent is adaptable and upskills themselves to suit your business needs. Such competent and motivated people have the power to contribute immensely and catapult your business to the next level.

Not only do they bring in their expertise to you, they also suggest best practices you can use to improve your process efficiency. They are a big source of inspiration, regardless of their grade. Whether you are a start-up or an established brand, Hire Quotient identifies these go-getters in any industry and bring them to you to propel your business, thus enabling you to attract top candidates in recruitment.

Availability of Talent in the Market

With the business world growing exponentially, you need to hire skilled people who are ready to learn, unlearn and relearn whatever it takes to perform their role the best.

Studies show that only 46.2% have employable skills, which means that the demand is way higher than the supply. In such a scenario, offering the highest package cannot be the only perk you offer. Since their options are many, candidates look for a combination of various elements in your offer and choose the one that promises an ideal environment for them to flourish.

Your job needs to offer a significant non-monetary increase, in terms of a rich scope of work, satisfying and impactful work with potential for rapid growth. The right blend of short term gains and long term benefits look ideal to top talent.

Jobseekers look for a place to put their skills to good use, make a career out of it and at the same time, have work life balance. Leveraging your brand’s strengths to offer a great place to work is a sureshot way to attract top candidates in recruitment.

Adverse Impact of Hiring Mis-Hires

If the hiring process is only biased towards one aspect of the candidate fit, you are likely to be end up with an employee with a great amiable personality but who needs extensive training to start delivering value. However, on the other hand, if you only focus on skill-based assessment without considering their personal traits, you may be hiring a brilliant employee who doesn’t value others in the team.

Knowledge, skills and attitude are equally important to consider in a candidate. A wrong hire can be potentially dangerous to the entire organisation. Here are some of the pitfalls of hiring the wrong person may:

Cost more than what they contribute
Feel distracted, disinterested and disengaged at work
Spread negativity and bring down morale
Hamper other people’s productivity
Require extensive training cost and increased training period
Bring baggage of learning from previous employment and try implementing them in your company
Fall short of skill requirements
Be unable to bring results
Stall team’s progress
Not see the big picture

All or any of the above causes disruption in productivity or harmony in the company, or both. Since people’s energies rub off one another, others are likely to pick up their traits, thus stalling team’s progress, especially if the wrong hire is in a leadership or managerial position. Stalling business growth and hampering employee morale are dangers no company can afford. Hence, it’s crucial to attract top candidates in recruitment, ensure they fit the skill, culture and personality requirements thereby determining if they are the best candidate to do justice to the role.

Top 10 Strategies that Hire the Best Talent

Let’s delve deep into the top 10 strategies that work like magic when you’re hiring. Be it base of the pyramid volume hiring, or elite C-suite hiring, these strategies are found to be incredibly helpful. Use them right away to attract top candidates in recruitment, retain their interest, pique their curiosity and enhance joining rate and quality of hire.

1. Planning Stage

All winning recruitment strategies begin from the top. You need a solid plan in place to achieve your desired outcome. Candidates want their recruiters to have crystal clear information about the role and company. Hence, you will need to be thorough on what each role entails in order to create a sterling impression on your candidates. Moreover, the sharper your plan is, focused your recruitment is. Otherwise, it’s just a wild goose chase.

2. Job Analysis & Specification

Draw out the throughput process of your business. Each contributing function has similar, or related tasks performed at various degrees. These similar tasks are grouped into one category called the ‘department’ or ‘function’. The stakeholders who drive each function at various touchpoints are crucial for proper functioning of the department and add value to the final outcome. Based on the volume of your business, the touchpoints may be few or several.

When you take a close look at each stakeholder, or process owner, you will arrive at a set of credentials the person needs to have to do their job well. In order to liaise with other stakeholders, process information given to them and perform well, they need domain-specific knowledge, cross functional and behavioural skills, their degrees varying on the level of responsibility they have in the macro business process. Once you map out the competencies, you will be able to list down all possible tasks the person will undertake, results they are responsible for and metrics that measure effectiveness of performance.

This process is called job analysis and your finding is the job specification.

3. Planning and Resource Allocation for the Position

Once you arrive at the job specification and description, you need to do some market research. Take a look at the mean and median compensation offered for each position. Find out the time required to fill and competitors’ quality of hire. Find out the team size, composition, common source of hire and strategy followed by your competitors. You’ll need to deploy a similar yet more effective strategy to get noticed by your target candidates.

Determine how much of overall cost the person will require, in terms of training, overhead expenses etc. Compare their value addition to the company with the median compensation offered by the market. Prepare your compensation formula and arrive at the ideal and competitive package that is sure to attract candidates in recruitment.

4. Carving out the Career Roadmap

Everyone wants to grow with time. The same applies to their role in your company. In your business process, their current position needs to have the potential to transcend into a better role with higher responsibilities and pay. You might decide the periodicity of succession/promotion based on their performance, capabilities and business requirements. But, knowing that they are in a growth environment is essential to candidates, especially top talent.

Hence, before you embark on the search for talent, you need to know the career roadmap of each role, for the coming 5-10 years at least. When you are armed with this important information, you stand at a better position to negotiate with your candidates and attract candidates in recruitment.

5. Set the Right Team

You’re now equipped with all the information you need. You have a spectacular strategy in place. You need a stellar team to implement the strategy. If you’re just forming your team, or have your reliable team, it’s advisable to revamp their skills, narrative and do a pulse check before they go on to the field to bring home your dream team.

6. Show Off Who You Are

Every candidate is an outsider looking in, and hence they need to know if you are the employer they would love to work for. How do you show them what’s in store for them?

You can do it through the following ways:

Maintain an engaging social media presence

Posting videos of a typical workday at your organisation
Candid feedback and selfie videos of your existing employees
‘A day in the life of’ videos

Website

An engaging career page
Have a strong ‘people’ section in your website where you showcase your HR practices

7. Reward letters

Sending a Rewards and Benefits letter/list with the Offer letter motivates the candidate to join the company and avail the benefits promised. They also have a chance to compare the benefits given by the company with their contacts working in different companies and figure out the extent of benefits your organisation provides.

8. Win Using Games

Use gamification to your advantage, to create a sophisticated impression, minimise manual operational tasks and save precious time. Your time and resources need not be spent on following up with numerous candidates in different geographies.

Invest in video production or games, to make an automated video about the company, role, job description etc. This introductory video can also be devised as a game wherein a candidate is required to complete certain levels and achieve the target score.

This type of interaction with the candidate will definitely fetch positive results in the long term as it builds curiosity, ensures that the candidate is already engaged even before joining and is likely to attract candidates in recruitment.

9. Equipping Your Recruitment Team

Have regular quality checks for your recruitment team’s interactions with your candidates. This can act as a yardstick to assess areas of improvement to enhance your talent acquisition function. Your brand can be top tier, but if your recruiter is inefficient, candidates will form a negative opinion of your company.

The best way to avoid any potential loss of good candidates is to be proactive and train them. Invest in upskilling your recruitment team. Ensure your hiring managers are also trained. Since they are not directly involved in talent acquisition, they may consider their interviewing or conversational skills to be top notch. Only upon assessment, will they be privy to their own strengths and shortcomings.

Upskill your entire hiring team, equip them with recent information about the company, upcoming changes and plausible impact on the positions hired for. Top candidates want to know as much information as possible before making a decision, and if your hiring team has all the information they need, you stand a good chance of attracting top candidates in recruitment.

10. Sourcing Techniques

Now that you have all the information and a fully equipped team, you need to get in action. Here are a few techniques to source top talent.

Go Omnichannel

Post your captivating job posts in multiple (paid and free) job boards to get maximum attention. Don’t forget to post on your company’s social media, as it’s a preferred medium to get close to your business. Invite your employees to share the requirement on their social media handles and recognise employees who bring in maximum responses.

Frame an employee referral policy to get your employees to canvass on your behalf and attract suitable talent from their personal and professional circles. Set aside a monetary reward for referring employees, to serve as motivation for their contribution.

Ensure you populate your entire digital footprint with the job role you are looking for, so as to attract candidates in recruitment.

Automated Sourcing

Save precious time in your hiring cycle by relying on a fool proof AI driven system that fetches top notch candidates for you in no time. HireQuotient offers highly advanced AI sourcing software that takes any requirement, searches the world wide web and presents a distilled list of quality candidates in the shortest time possible. Our algorithms work magic to optimise your hiring cycle.

Network, Network, Network

Have your recruitment sign up for industry forums, online communities etc. to ensure they engage with the best of talent in the industry. You could come across exceptional talent whom you can have a discussion and roll out an offer. Industry related forums are a goldmine for top talent as the top performers visit to gain recent insights.

Having a wide range of connections also enhances your chances of attracting candidates in recruitment. Leverage your cross industry connections and build bridges with the leading people in your industry by connecting with them on LinkedIn and other professional social media. Don’t underestimate the power of networking.

Form an Alumni Group

Whenever you hire for a position, you build a candidate pool, of which most are rejected and a few are selected. Those who were a good match but lacked a few elements may be worthy assets to a future role. So, it’s crucial to part ways in good terms during the recruitment process and stay in touch with them after the recruitment drive is over. This way, whenever a new position opens up, you may contact and consider them.

Another goldmine for talent sourcing is your company alumni. It is imperative to maintain good relationships with employees who get relieved from your company. An industry best practice is to form an alumni network where you add all relieved employees, set up a reunion and further your relationship with them. An alumni group gives you the chance to get candidates in recruitment and if a suitable position comes up, you can also lure some of your former employees to rejoin your company.

Best Screening Techniques

The best screening techniques to filter the cream layer of your candidate pool is to have assessments focused to determine the suitability of the candidate to the job. The following are some non-negotiables you will need to have in your screening process:

Pre-Screening Tests
One way robotic video interview for initial screening
Domain based assessments to check skill fitment
Personality assessments to check personality match to your company culture
Personal Interview to check genuinity of candidate

Conclusion

Hiring is highly rewarding when done right. By forging strategic alliances with best candidates in the industry, communicating your brand’s value proposition and having a seamless and effective hiring strategy in place can make it easier for you to attract candidates in recruitment and bring home your A-team.

Ten Recruitment Strategies That Hire the Best Talent