How to attract the best talent

How to attract the best talent.

The success of a business is largely dependent on its talent. In order to attract the best talent, your business needs to position itself as a great place to work. In the post-pandemic marketplace, employers are now inundated with potential candidates as unemployment rises. Many businesses are now re-thinking their recruitment strategies to become more cost effective and efficient.

So how do you attract, and keep the best employees?

Understand your company’s mission and values

The first step is to fully determine what your company mission is, and the values it stands for. How are these communicated and do employee’s buy into them?

Not only will this help candidates to understand whether they would be a fit in your business, but it will help you to understand they types of staff you need. It will also help with your employee retention and engagement – staff are more likely to feel motivated if they align with your business ethos.

Build an employee-focused culture

What’s important to your employees? Is it a good work–life balance? Or it could be flexible working options, benefits or an open management structure. Once you have identified what your employees want from you as an employer, this will help you to communicate and attract more staff who value the same things.

Staff want to feel valued and building a culture which recognises them and values their input will lead to improved retention and motivation.

Look at our guide to motivating your employees or setting up a flexible benefit scheme.

Encourage employees to become brand ambassadors

It goes without saying that happy staff will stay longer within your business. Not only this, but they are your biggest brand ambassadors and can help you to recruit the best talent.

There are numerous ways to showcase your employees including:

Featuring testimonials from staff on your website.
Creating a culture book for potential new recruits and new starters (and publicising this online). Read our guide to creating a Culture Book on Enterprise Nation.
Creating ‘recruitment cards’ for staff to hand out to potential employees they may meet during the course of their business which contains information on the company and how to get in touch.
Via social media – publish testimonials/videos of staff and what it’s like to work in the business. Not on the High Street are a great example with a dedicated careers page.
Set up a referral scheme that encourages employees to refer friends or suitable people for an incentive.

Use social media

It sounds obvious but using tools like LinkedIn to find potential candidates and connect with them should not be overlooked. Find relevant groups on Facebook and LinkedIn where potential candidates could be. You can use hashtags or keywords to help you find them.

In reverse, social media can provide a great platform to sell your business to potential employees. Your business should have a company page that sells the benefits of working for you. Read our guide to using social media to recruit.

Think about old employees

Don’t forget about former employees. If they left on good terms, it could be worth reaching out and seeing where they are now. Would they be interested in returning to your business?

Don’t forget about onboarding and induction

A robust onboarding and induction plan is essential in order to make the right impression with a new starter. Not only that, but it is crucial for staff retention. One of the biggest HR expenses for small businesses is spending time and money on recruitment, only to lose new employees within the first three months. The most common complaints we hear when conducting exit interviews on behalf of clients is that new starters weren’t given enough information and felt unsupported and left to their own devices. Read our guide to onboarding in a virtual environment and our case study of how we helped a client recruit virtually.

For more help or advice with your recruitment strategy or on how to attract the best talent get in touch.