Article by Lucy Evans, Executive Recruitment Consultant at Heat Recruitment
The most successful companies are those who manage to attract and retain top candidates with a strong talent acquisition strategy.
Creating and maintaining a solid recruitment process will benefit the company as a whole, so when you start to build this, be sure to consider these elements to boost effectiveness.
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Talent pipelining
Instead of waiting until the eleventh hour to begin your talent acquisition process, successful companies will invest in an ongoing strategy that constantly works to build a network of potential candidates.
It’s essential that, as a hiring manager, you have a stock of candidates that would be an ideal match for your company, ready and waiting in the wings in case somebody resigns, leaves the company or is promoted to a higher position. By keeping this network up to date, it gives your organisation an opportunity to build relationships with the right people and promote the company culture to those who could one day be a part of it.
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Boosting your employer brand
The best way you can draw new candidates in and keep them at the company is to look at the culture and how this is reflected in your employer branding. This affects how potential and current employees perceive the business, and it can be boosted through various initiatives and platforms.
Take a moment to look at your current marketing materials and ask yourself: do they accurately reflect the company culture, perks and values? Including trusted staff members in this content, rather than corporate stock images, will appear much more realistic and authentic, and an added bonus of this is building employee engagement, meaning these materials are significantly more likely to get more mileage and reach a wider network.
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Social media engagement
It’s so important to make sure you maximise your presence on all social platforms. Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook and Instagram are just a few of the most popular platforms that provide you with opportunities to directly reach potential candidates. It’s the prime place to shout about your company’s achievements, people and offering.
A common misconception is that social media exists primarily to attract new business and reach existing clients, but these days, it’s also the main platform that active and passive candidates alike will check to learn more about a company. With that in mind, it’s essential that all social accounts are active and ready to pull in new talent when the opportunity arises.
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Learning and development opportunities
Talent acquisition isn’t just about recruiting new members; equally important are the steps that you take to retain your top performers. Your strategy should cover the various ways you intend to develop current staff members, as people are much more interested in staying with a company that provides learning and development opportunities supporting them to progress in their career.
By helping to professionally grow an individual, workers are much more likely to continue to want to progress within the same company rather than turn towards competitors for better career advancement opportunities.
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Simplify your application process
A candidate may be interested in applying for your company, but they can be just as easily lost during the application process if it becomes too complicated or onerous. Keeping this stage as simple as possible is key to making sure you secure their interest. A simple step is to consider reducing the amount of forms applying candidates have to fill in when applying to the role, and deciding how many questions are essential for them to initially answer.
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Embrace diversity and inclusion
Having a diverse hiring team oversee new talent coming through the doors can really help the output of your company, and make sure that you hire the very best people to help you to achieve your business goals. Be sure to not see diversity as a benefit and an opportunity – a target to always aim towards in your quest to acquire the best possible talent.
About the author
Lucy Evans is an Executive Recruitment Consultant specialising within the Wealth Management industry. She works for Heat Recruitment, a specialist recruitment agency based in Bristol operating across the UK that specialise in Engineering, Information Technology, Insurance, Financial Services and the Legal sector. They place candidates in both permanent and contract roles.
