Businesses in Ireland are facing continued challenges when it comes to hiring top candidates for their roles. It’s one of the key issues facing many businesses across a variety of industries, which have skills gaps that only workers with relevant and specific experiences can fill.
As a result, it’s crucial to have a comprehensive recruitment process in place that facilitates the attraction and onboarding of qualified candidates. However, that’s often much easier said than done.
In this article, we’re going to walk you through how to attract quality candidates with 8 tried and tested strategies for success.
Importance of attracting high-quality applicants
While it may seem obvious that employers always want to appeal to the highest quality candidates possible for each open role, it’s worth bearing in mind the specific benefits that come as a result of hiring top talent. These include:
Plugging skills gaps: By attracting top candidates, employers can address skills gaps and ensure teams are well-equipped to face future challenges.
Driving innovation: The best candidates aren’t just those who show up and get the job done, they are also creative thinkers who solve specific problems.
Gaining a competitive advantage: Hiring top talent can help organisations stay ahead of the curve and leverage the latest best practices to stay ahead of the competition.
8 strategies to attract high-quality candidates
Given the impact top talent can have on an organisation, it’s no surprise that employers across Ireland are looking to find ways to appeal to the highest calibre of candidates possible. But how can you stand out from the crowd?
Let’s look at some of the strategies you can implement into your talent acquisition and hiring processes to attract the best applicants from your talent pools.
1. Build a strong employer brand
Reputation is crucial to attracting potential employees. By building a strong employer brand, you can catch the eye of top candidates and help them associate your organisation with a positive company culture.
Here are just some of the ways you can start to build a strong employer brand:
Leverage social media: Don’t discount the power of social media to influence people’s perceptions. There are endless opportunities to use the internet to share your organisation’s values, culture, and employee experiences.
Take part in industry events: By becoming a visible presence at industry events, you can become top of mind for applicants looking for their next role. These can be in-person conferences, employment fairs, or online events where existing employees can contribute their expertise and knowledge.
Use your website: Most candidates will at least take a look at an organisation’s website during the application process. This gives your organisation the chance to showcase its achievements, awards, and culture.
2. Publish engaging job descriptions
Badly written job adverts can be seriously off-putting for candidates. After all, you’re asking people to put their time and effort into an application process that may not go anywhere for them.
If a job ad is low-effort and unclear, applicants will either respond in kind with low-effort applications or just steer clear altogether. As a result, when putting together a job description, consider:
- Outlining key responsibilities and requirements alongside the job title.
- Highlighting the opportunities for training, development, and professional growth within your organisation.
- Use inclusive language to make sure you’re appealing to a diverse range of candidates.
- Avoiding vague language so you only attract candidates with the skills and experience you need.
3. Provide competitive benefits and compensation
In addition to being transparent when it comes to salary and benefits, offering competitive compensation is central to ensuring applicants from quality candidates.
Whatever else you are offering, salary is one of the main things candidates look for when considering their next role, with our research showing that it’s the biggest influence in 73% of workers’ decision to apply for a job. To make sure your salary and benefits are truly competitive:
- Benchmark what you want to offer against industry standards, taking into account your organisation’s location and reputation.
- Try to find a way to differentiate your offering from competitors, like coming up with attractive bonus structures or providing additional employee benefits, like flexible working.
- Consider positioning your organisation as a place that takes family-friendly policies seriously. Two-thirds of workers told IrishJobs that they view employers who offer family-friendly benefits more favourably.
4. Encourage employee referrals
One of the best ways to bring in candidates who are already aligned with your organisation’s culture is by leveraging employee referrals. If current team members recommend your workplace to people in their network, then that’s a vote of confidence that shouldn’t be overlooked.
To encourage your current employees to refer to high-quality candidates, you may need to implement an employee referral scheme. This can incentivise employees to make referrals by rewarding them for successful hires.
5. Build strategic talent pipelines
Attracting quality candidates to current roles is understandably a priority for hiring managers. However, you can also set your organisation up for success in the longer term with the establishment of strategic talent pipelines.
To assemble a successful pipeline of talent, employers can:
- Partner with educational institutions, such as universities and colleges, where top candidates graduate from.
- Work closely with industry organisation and associations where new talent might come through.
- Create internship programmes so potential future hires can get a real feel for life at the organisation.
- Participate in career fairs and networking events, where your employees can engage and connect with a wider pool of talent.
6. Invest in Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion
Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DE&I) is growing in importance for jobseekers, with a Deloitte survey showing that 80% see inclusions as an important factor when choosing an employer. This means that, with a genuine culture and respect for DE&I, you can attract a broader range of quality candidates, while ensuring current employees feel welcome and valued.
This requires developing a strong DE&I strategy within your organisation that demonstrates a commitment to workforce diversity and inclusion. You can then showcase your diverse teams and inclusive initiatives, whether through your online channels, employees word-of-mouth, or at in-person events such as conferences and job fairs.
7. Create a positive candidate experience
Focusing on creating a positive candidate experience is an undervalued strategy when it comes to candidate attraction. It can form a large part of your organisation’s reputation, with experiences, whether positive or negative, often being reported online.
The best candidates are going to expect professionalism, good communication, and transparency from the moment they submit an application through to the interview process. To create a positive candidate experience, employers can:
- Streamline the application process, reduce the number of rounds where possible, and ensure candidates are tested on different aspects of their capabilities and experience at each stage of the application.
- Communicate promptly and clearly at each stage of the process.
- Make sure the experience is welcoming and positive. This might include steps to ensure that interviews are conducted in a friendly and professional manner.
- Provide feedback on the application process, even for candidates who are ultimately unsuccessful.
8. Make training and development part of the offer
Training and development opportunities are high up on candidates’ list of priorities when looking for a new job. With changes in the way we work continuously being driven by new technologies, upskilling and lifelong learning are becoming a vital part of having a successful career. As a result, employers can appeal to high-quality candidates by offering training programmes as part of the compensation package.
There are various types of training employers can offer candidates in order to stand out in a competitive hiring landscape, including:
- On-boarding training: Implementing comprehensive onboarding training helps to bring new hires up to speed quickly and emphasises the importance of their professional development from day one.
- Technical training: Offering training in emerging technologies, such as artificial intelligence, can plug skills gaps and demonstrate a commitment to employee growth and future aspirations.
- Leadership training: Providing opportunities for leadership development can attract high-performing, ambitious employees interested in taking on management responsibilities in the future.