How Companies Can Attract the Best Talent

The best person for the job is somewhere out there, but how do you find and attract that individual to join your company?

Finding the best talent for the job is essential because a company is only as good as its employees. New hires, young employees, and recent grads, in particular, can bring not only new skills but also fresh perspectives and youthful creative energy.

Most importantly, ensuring that the best person fills a vacant position is essential for businesses to achieve their objectives and succeed in a rapidly changing world. According to the 2022 Workforce Report of talent cloud company iCIMS, 92% (or a vast majority) of C-suite leaders say that their organizations won’t be able to meet their goals for the year without the right talent. So, a company’s ability to fill that vacant position with the best talent available will spell their success or failure.

However, this is easier said than done.

In Deloitte’s 2019 Global Human Capital Trends, researchers note that attracting qualified talent is one of Human Resource’s “biggest challenges.” The Skills Gap 2019, published by the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM), echoes this finding, with 83% of HR professionals reporting having “difficulty recruiting suitable job candidates in the past 12 months.”

The reason: Today’s hiring environment is very competitive.

How Can Companies Attract the Best Talent?

Companies today are faced with the challenge of attracting the best talent in a highly competitive hiring environment. To succeed in this arena, employers must implement a strong recruitment strategy that will help them stand out to potential employees.

This hiring plan consists of internal and external recruitment tactics discussed below.

Internal Recruitment

Sometimes the best talent is right under our noses, so it’s important to conduct internal recruitment first before looking to hire from outside the company.

This hiring tactic is suitable for both the company and its employees. It boosts employee morale and motivation and reduces employee turnover. For the company, it’s less expensive to hire internally as there’s typically no relocation, travel, referral incentives, and extensive training costs. It’s also quicker to promote an employee who has established connections in the organization and has already adapted to its corporate culture.

According to the Balancing Employer and Employee Priorities report by WTW (formerly Willis Towers Watson), a multinational risk management and advisory firm, 64% of talent professionals place employee retention as a top priority, but 56% of organizations struggle to retain their high-potential and top-performing employees.

The primary reason for this is a lack of career growth opportunities within the company. The National Research Business Institute reports that 23% of employees voluntarily resign from their jobs due to a lack of development and training. On the other hand, 78% of employees would stay longer if they see a clear career path within the company, according to a Mercer survey.

The lack of opportunities for career growth is a costly problem as, according to 2015 LinkedIn Data, the salary cost of disengaged employees is $3,400 for every $10,000.

So, how do you address this problem? Simple: Empower and engage employees with career growth opportunities by building a transformative learning culture.

• KSA database—HR can use a KSA (knowledge, skills, and abilities) database to track an employee’s career goals, background, and experiences. HR will typically include an employee’s KSA profile when discussing career development, performance review, promotion, or transfer.

• Learning champions—Employees who demonstrate that they can learn quickly should be encouraged and even rewarded so that they’ll want to keep learning. One way to promote learning would be to state the skills necessary for a new role clearly.

• Succession planning—Typically used to identify potential talent, succession planning can also be used to create developmental plans for employees who are working toward a promotion. 

• Lunch & Learn—These sessions can be about various subjects and last for 30 to 45 minutes.

External Recruitment

We focused above on internal recruitment because engaged employees make a good talent pool for the company and are also an excellent way for an organization to attract more top talent through referrals.

• Employee referrals—A fast and cost-effective way to hire new employees, a referral program incentives your employees to become brand ambassadors. Referrals usually result in a quality hire because employees understand what type of candidate their organization requires for a specific role. Referrals work well for senior positions, and those that are hard to fill must be filled quickly or cannot be left vacant and require specialist or niche expertise.

Aside from referrals, here are other ways to attract the best talent:

• Diverse outreach strategies—There are many ways an employer can reach out to candidates these days. Expanding your outreach can also diversify your workforce. Here’s how:
  • Work with recruitment partners, including the government, third-party recruiters, and outplacement firms.
  • Conduct campus recruitment at local higher educational institutions, such as colleges and universities.
  • Get involved in community-based training and employment programs.
  • Post job advertisements on niche-specific job boards and online forums. For example, an amusement park in Michigan posts that they are hiring right on the front page!
  • Participate in in-person or virtual conferences, professional events, industry events, and other networking events.
  • Leverage LinkedIn and other social media platforms.
  • Host an open house to showcase the best of your business and start a conversation with potential employees.
  • Organize competitions or online talent hunt programs where people can display their skills. For instance, you could hold a marketing competition to find the best marketer for your business.
    
    
• Recruitment automation—Predictive analytics, machine learning, and artificial intelligence can speed up your hiring process and reduce recruitment-related costs. Recruitment automation would make sense for a company hiring at scale or those that want to hire someone as soon as possible.

• Branding—This is like your company’s personality and reputation. Present your employer value proposition (EVP) to potential hires by answering the question, “What value can your company provide in return for the value the employee brings to your business?” You can highlight your organization’s unique “why,” its values and culture, compensation and benefits packages, flexible work schedules, diverse and inclusive work environment, growth opportunities, causes you to support, and so on. 

• Candidate persona—This profile represents your ideal candidate, including their educational background, professional qualifications, work experience, skills, etc. It can aid in customizing your recruitment strategy so that it’s attractive to your ideal candidate.

• Hiring experience—This is the candidate experience or candidate journey, which deals with how a candidate is treated during the hiring process. Ensure you have a consistent and standardized process that’s simple—even pleasant—and that respects the candidate. Basically, you’ll want to identify all the candidate touchpoints in your recruitment workflow and create a wow moment. These guidelines should cover resume or application submission, candidate communication, interview, and logistics. 
  
  
• Learning program or career development opportunities—Communicate clearly that your company is invested in the career development of its employees. For example, include that you offer an internship program or development stipends in your job ads.

You Can Attract the Best Talent

The best talent is certainly out there, and you can get them to join your organization. All you need is a strong recruitment strategy that incorporates sound internal and external hiring tactics.

Remember that your business is only as good as the collective talent of your employees. So, getting the best talent out there to become a part of your organization is crucial for achieving company goals this year and beyond.