According to Trading Economics, the US unemployment rate unexpectantly increased from 3.5 to 3.6 percent in January 2020 from the previous month’s 50-year low. And the whole situation with the covid crisis made these numbers skyrocket in 2021.
Additionally, 139,000 more people claimed to be unemployed. As such, the job market has become increasingly more competitive.
While you might think that an increase in unemployment might make it easier to find qualified and committed team members, the reality is that today’s recruitment environment has just gotten that much more difficult.
With that in mind, today, we’ll discuss 12 ways to strengthen your competitive recruiting game to find the best talent for your organization:
- Develop your employment brand
- Promote your employer brand
- Be a great employer
- Offer a competitive compensation and benefits package
- Take social recruiting seriously
- Encourage employee referrals
- Nonstop recruiting
- Offer a realistic job preview
- Improve hiring managers interviewing skills
- Revisit former employees
- Start using pre-employment testing
- Focus more on blind hiring
- Make it easier to apply
- Utilize the technology to be more time and cost-effective
Let’s dive in!
1. Develop Your Employer Brand
We’ve spoken regularly about the vital role that your company’s culture plays in attracting top talent, but there’s a lot more to it if you want to compete in this recruiting environment.
To find the very best talent for your organization, you first have to understand what makes your firm unique and then make sure anyone and everyone knows about it by developing your employer brand.
The employer brand refers to your reputation as an employer. It’s the reason your current employees love where they work and the reason potential employees will want to work with you.
It’s the secret sauce that makes your business different. Spend some time thinking about what sets you apart and use it to recruit the very best, and make sure to check out our comprehensive guide on employer brand.
2. Promote your employer brand
If you’re going to recruit in today’s market competitively, you must also PROMOTE your employer brand using multiple channels.
Start with a great company website, and make sure that it is mobile-friendly. If not, make sure that you’ve allocated resources and budget to upgrading your site since so many of today’s job seekers search for jobs using their mobile devices.
Open positions should be posted to your website and distributed across all social media channels and job boards.
Additionally, if you’re going to stay competitive, your recruiters should start taking media requests to promote your company’s brand.
Our post on recruitment marketing might come in handy here.
3. Be a Great Employer
Building on the previous point, once you’ve identified what makes your company so unique that other people want to work with you, even when you don’t have any open positions, continue onward toward the path to greatness by being a great employer!
Earning the title of “best place to work” is a very real thing, so don’t hesitate to strive for it and apply for the official title. When it comes to competitive recruiting in today’s labor market, awards and titles may set you apart from other organizations and promote your organization and culture.
Be sure to also attend and SPEAK at HR conferences and other industry-related conferences. These are great opportunities for professional development, to share your company’s best practices, and to network with other professionals. You never know when you might bump into a potential employee.
4. Offer a Competitive Compensation and Benefits Package
Employee compensation and benefits have always been topics for discussion when it comes to competitive recruiting. That conversation is even more relevant as the job market gets even more competitive.
Take a look at what you have to offer concerning compensation and benefits for new employees so that you can be externally competitive. However, make sure that what you’re offering is also internally fair. The last thing you want to do is to encourage your current staff to look elsewhere.