The Art of Attraction

When hiring, companies spend a lot of time on recruitment efforts. More progressive firms also dedicate time and effort into retention strategies to lessen their recruitment load. Recruiting and Retention are two parts of a successful recruiting strategy. But few companies focus on the third piece:?Attraction.

Here are 10 things you can do today that will immediately have a positive impact on your Attraction success and subsequently, your recruitment and retention strategies.

1.????Coordinate your outbound marketing (social feeds, website, any external initiatives, events, etc.,) with your recruiting. Both need to have similar messaging, tone and voice. And all channels should have visibility to your company’s overall business and growth strategies to further align messaging.

2.????Think about the candidate experience when you design and implement an applicant tracking system and overall hiring process. Too many companies design programs with only their internal needs in mind.

3.????Do not use internal job descriptions as your job postings. Yes, highlight the skills and requirements needed for the role, but include content designed to entice the candidate and to educate them on your business mission and values. The more they know at the onset of their engagement with your company the more engaged they will be throughout the hiring process. If you end up hiring the candidate they will have already bought into your company and mission. (hint: this makes them better employees too.)

4.????Don’t use your social channels to only promote your business or products. Include the unique aspects of working for your firm in your social feeds. Highlight your culture, your people, and what is positive about working for your firm.

5.????Design a candidate evaluation/interview plan that is consistent for each role throughout the company. For example, don’t let your marketing team or client services department put people through a 4- step interview process, while your creative department has a two-step process + spec work. And….

6.????Don’t have people do spec work or projects for free as part of the hiring process. ?

7.????If you have internal team members (future peers of your hire) interview candidates, don’t let them run candidates through a rigorous interview. They are not the hiring authority, they are future peers. These meetings should be highly conversational. And educate them on the role, and the candidate's background and qualifications. Internal employees need to be prepared and informed.

8.????Communicate any in-person interview instructions clearly, such as parking or the process for access to a secured office environment. Don’t leave someone sitting in a lobby or outside an elevator bank unable to get to your office floor. Set-up and test technology beforehand for video calls. If your hiring manager only has a free version of Zoom, their video call is dropping in 45 minutes. It looks bad that if your company hasn’t ponied up for a subscription.

9.????Close the loop. If you are passing on someone, let them know. It’s just basic common courtesy and says a lot about your professionalism.

10.?Always be recruiting. Build a “hire readiness” program where every hiring manager in your organization stays on the look-out for future hires. This is done through networking, being active and engaging on LinkedIn and knowing the growth strategies and plans of your business.

11.?Remember, every candidate has a professional network that you may want to tap into. You may not want to hire a particular person, but your next great hire could be in their network. How you treat the candidate helps to determine if you’ll have any success with someone in their network.

So, you got 11 instead of 10. Doing these 11 steps is that important. It will make your recruiting strategy more successful. Because you have a strategy, right?