How to Ensure that You Are Looking in the Right Places for Talent
While it may be tempting to just throw a job posting onto an online job board when your company is hiring, or launch a post about the opening to your followers on social media, these may not be the best avenues to find the top candidates for the job.
Talent acquisition is an extremely important task for any company, as your employees make your business run. To ensure that you are looking in the right places for talent, you may need to move beyond the basics of job boards and social media. Here are some options to consider to ensure that you are looking in the best places to find the best candidates:
Consider Your Company’s Branding
Is your company well-known in its field? Is it well-regarded locally as a good place to work? Does it have a reputation for providing quality products or services? Ideally, you will answer “yes” to all of these questions, and ideally that will mean that candidates seek you out for internships and jobs.
If you answered “no” to any of these questions, it is time for some changes to be made. This will not only help with internal morale, but will also help improve your company’s branding, online presence, and overall reputation, which will hopefully draw quality candidates to you and make your job postings more attractive to top candidates, wherever you end up posting them.
Keep a Pool of Potential Candidates
The hiring process for any job naturally introduces you to many candidates, and conversely, candidates are introduced to what it is like to work at your company. You will probably interview several candidates for each position, and may have several finalists for the position.
While you may like several of the finalists equally, you must eventually choose one. But what about the other finalists who also seemed like a good fit for your company? If you deliberately keep a pool of these candidates, and they agree to it and are interested in future positions at the company, you can contact them for those future positions. This gives you an automatic pool of quality candidates to contact, who are already interested in working at your company, and who you already know would be a good fit.
Use Existing Networks
Another avenue to ensure that you are reaching the best candidates is to use existing networks, including your current employees’ networks. Current employees, specifically, already know all about the company, and the company’s needs, so they will be able to recommend quality candidates to match the qualifications needed.
In addition, employees can refer people directly, and candidates have a point-of-contact for any questions they might have. This is a win-win for the company, since they are receiving referrals from people already working at the company who know what the company needs.
As you can see, there are many ways to ensure that your business is looking in the right places for talent. While there is no one trick to placing job ads, these tips can certainly help you target the best talent possible for your company.