Attraction – Top Ten Tips to Hire the Best in Your Industry

Are you having trouble attracting the right quality candidates during recruitment? If so, it might be time to stop and pause. Why? Because you are now going to need the best attraction techniques on the market. The “War for Talent” is here and it's time for your recruitment function to get strategic. You're hiring managers need to start selling and HR needs to turn on several different pipelines to market.?

As I always say to my clients and those who attend our training courses – “If you'regoing fishing, you need to go where the fish are”.

Why Change Now?

So why the need to change our approach all of a sudden? Sticking an advert in the paper or on Seek has worked for the past 20 years, right? Well, I’m afraid to inform you that the world has changed.

First of all, let's have a look at what's happening in the marketplace. It's an incredibly tight candidate market at present. This is all to do with an aging population. Since 2020, more people are hitting retirement and the age of 65 than ever before. This means a huge amount of labour and expertise is leaving the workforce. At the same time. In the Gen Z arena there is zero growth of 0- to 16-year-olds. This does not mean there are no teenagers. It just means there is no growth in this part of the population. All this leads to a huge skills crunch, and you're probably feeling it right now in your recruitment practises. Not only is this the tightest labour market (currently running at around 3.8 to 4% unemployment in 2023 and 2024) but it's the worst it's been in 50 years. Yes, since 1974. And the sad news is it's not going to get any better for another 10 years.

In the meantime, with fewer school leavers coming through and politicians debating immigration, it's time to get strategic. If we really do want to attract and retain the top talent in our industries, I have some tips and tricks for you on how to attract the best: I'm basically saying to turn all your taps on and hit all pipelines to market.

“Post and Pray” – Don’t Work No More!

For the past few years a “post and pray mentality worked” for many. What does this mean? Well, you post a job ad on Seek and pray that someone will apply! Many organisations are using just one channel to market, plus maybe posting on their own careers’ website too, just hoping that people will happen to visit and see jobs on offer.

Those days are gone. Organisations now need to be a lot more creative about how they attract candidates, get them interested in the organisation and keep candidates engaged - all the way to offer stage and beyond.

So here are my top tips to open up more channels, get competitive and have the edge when it comes to hiring great talent.

1. Get on LinkedIn?

I know it sounds cliche but so many organisations I speak with have still not got a decent LinkedIn page about their organisation.

You need to have a LinkedIn page that talks all about your organisation. I'm not talking about what your company does as a product or industry. That’s your CVP (or your Consumer Value Proposition). You need to be talking about your EVP – your Employee Value Proposition. Do you know what it is? And more importantly, do your hiring managers know what this is? Your LinkedIn page should be all about what’s it like to work at your organisation.

Such as pictures of the office. People at the office. The view from the window. Morning teas, Awards won, interesting projects, charity work. Make it interesting, get followers and likes and share within your industry. Most importantly, get your hiring managers on LinkedIn to like and share all job vacancies and all LinkedIn posts done by HR. Guess what? They all have contacts and networks within your industry. Encourage them to like and share every job post you put out there. They need to understand that you're all working together to find the best in the industry. So, every conference, every news release, every award, you all need to be talking about it.

Tip - Do you train your hiring managers on how to do their LinkedIn profile and the need to like and share every job post?

2. Do Some Glassdoor Reviews

Are you on the review sites? I'm talking about things like Glassdoor. This is an employee review site where people will give a rating of your organisation.

Unfortunately, this tends to be completed by people who have left and are disgruntled. However, you can change this. Ask your current employees who are happy or those who may be leaving but have had a really good time with you, to do a review. Maybe change that two- or three-star rating to a five-star rating. Glassdoor is where people will look, they will hop online, go on Google and search up your organisation. Use the review sites to your advantage. Don't let them sit there with bad reviews. Make sure you're getting good reviews too.

3. Does Everyone Know Your EVP and Employee Brand Messages?

Not only do HR & TA need to know your EVP and employer brand: it's also really important that your hiring managers know this as well. What are the key messages they need to be selling? What are the benefits of working at your place? Why join and also why stay? (This is a retention tool too). Often during training sessions I'm always surprised how little the hiring managers know about their brand and EVP messages and the need for them to sell the role and the organisation during an interview.

They've never been told they need to do this or trained on how to do this and actually it's a core part of their role during the hiring process. Hiring managers need to be polished professionals and sell the role, the organisation, the team and the culture. If they're not doing this, you're missing out. Because the best talent will have other job offers. Those getting a bad interview at your workplace - will walk. And straight into the doors of your main competitor.

4. Repost - Like and Share Baby

Get everyone (hiring managers and HR) to broaden their network make sure every time you've got a job to advertise, they see it, like it, and like and share with their network. It's a surefire way to make an advert go from 1000 people to 10,000 people in one afternoon.

5. Have an Ace Search Person in the Recruitment Team

This is a new unique role in a specialised function – but well worth investing in. Add a search person into your recruitment function. Obviously, you need to be a fair size company - probably over 1000 people to afford to do this. But will save you heaps in Recruitment / Search fees for specialist roles. The specialist will then search, and connect with candidates via LinkedIn, Facebook and Google. They will search the web, and they will find the needle in the haystack (known in Recruitment circles as the purple unicorn).

This can be a much better way of Headhunting (and far cheaper than Agency) plus more effective than an advert in the paper or on a job board. I have a couple of clients who've gone this route recently and they're all getting extraordinary results. If they fill four to five vacancies a year this will cover their salary versus search fees. Now what if that person is actually filling 2 rolls a month? They'd be worth their weight in gold, especially for technical critical specialist roles.

6. Go Mobile – Think Insta and Snapchat…?and Gen Z

Get mobile.

What do I mean by this? Is there is more than just LinkedIn. Think about Facebook, Facebook groups. Think about Snapchat, Instagram even Tiktok if it gets the right results. Where are your fish (candidates) hanging out? That's where you need to be. Especially for young people, graduates, apprentices, school leavers, college leavers. What's their social media of choice? Get creative and get connecting and engaging with them re opportunities.

Again, remember, applicants will be applying on the bus, on the tram, on the plane, they'll be on social media. That's where you need to be. Don't think that press adverts or seek will get strong applicant fields any more.

However, in the same breath I will also say: if you're after maybe a different set of workers the job board at Coles might work. An ad in the local paper could still work. Maybe a flyer at a local BBQ. Or on a community Facebook page. Don't assume everyone's on Instagram. Or that everyone likes a video interview. Think about the candidates you're trying to attract and what would be an appeal appealing process for them? It might be that you have to have several different channels to market.

Because there's going to be five different generations in the workplace.

7. Connect with Educational Institutes (Schools and TAFE etc.)

Apprentices and interns are back in vogue! Employers more willing than ever to give young people a chance and training.

Again, look at your channels to market. Do you have entry level positions in your organisation? It could be that you need to run new programs or talks with local schools, Colleges, TAFE, universities, footy clubs, hockey clubs, netball clubs, you name it. Maybe information evenings. Maybe get some pizzas in and a guest speaker or door prize.

For example, if you're a power company go along to schools and take along the cherry picker (high lift truck). Gain some interest in the roles and training opportunities, go where the candidates are. Rock concerts?

Offer apprenticeships, internships, school placements, work experience, holiday jobs. Anything that will get them in the door. I'm serious, the labour market is so tight. You're going to be so glad that you got all these young people to join and trained up.

What's the worst thing that can happen? You send them on their way with a good experience and good references. The best thing might be they stay for the next 20 or 30 years and become your next CEO.

8. Use Some Cool Tools of Attraction

Explore some tools that can make your adverts and careers website pop or more engaging. One example would be a video about my job where instead of posting a boring job description you do a short video message from the manager about the role. People can see them, their passion, the organisation, probably the team and the room that they'll be working in. People like to watch videos, (keep them short). They are a lot more engaging than a boring advert. Research figures would indicate a 68% uplift in applicants to a video rather than a boring old written job advert.

I will also mention tools like Textio. This looks at the language of your job adverts. Are they gender neutral? Are they written in a more male or female language?

It's a known fact (see some of my other articles and posts) that some adverts language and job descriptions will put off female applicants because they're written in male voice. Try and use neutral language to attract all genders. Check out Textio or Work180 for some tips and more research about attracting female applicants.

9. Write Better Job Adverts

Think about your job adverts - are they dull? They should be engaging, bright, shiny and interesting, leaving the candidate wanting to find out more. My top tip here would be to check out the Canva careers website. Here's the link they write excellent engaging simple job adverts. (https://lifeatcanva.com/en/jobs/ ). Their career page was a national winner recently (Talent Table research). Look how they provide information for candidates on benefits. It makes you want more. They also have a sign up form - so you don't have to apply for a specific job. Just leave your name and address and get on the register. Then they will email you other exciting opportunities.

10. Be Flexible

Be flexible – think a four-day week, work from home, hybrid roles or job share.

Global research indicates candidates value flexibility. There may be some cracking candidates out there and you just need to flex your thinking to tap into some new talent pools (for real diversity and inclusion) and hours or full time on site could be a barrier to hire for some people.

Go Get Em!

So, in summary… what are you waiting for? It's time to get competitive. It's time to get strategic. If your competitors have these people, you don't. If you have these people, they don't. This is what the next 10 years of recruitment is going to look like.

Fiercely competitive, The War for Talent is here. So, HR, get your ducks in a row get your talent pipeline active.

In quick summary:

• HR own LinkedIn and post on there
• Managers know your EVP and Brand.?
• Get everyone to like and share all your job roles.?
• Make sure you've got a search team?
• Don't just use LinkedIn and Seek. Think other social media platforms.?
• Train your hiring managers in how to sell at interview
• Use funky tools like Textio and video my job.?
• Take the time to write good engaging ads
• Add a bit of flexibility in your workplace.

Good luck, you're going to need it. The war for talent is here. It's real, and you'to start filling those empty seats.?This will impact the bottom line.

And if you'd like to know how we train hiring managers in EVP, brand and how to sell interview, drop me a line or DM me.