Missed the New Year recruitment rush? Here's how to attract talent year-round
Along with the resolutions, diets and Blue Monday (the saddest day of the year), January brings one of the busiest periods in the recruitment calendar. This is usually a result of businesses trying to catch up on recruiting that slowed down in December, and of people viewing the New Year as an opportunity to make more than one fresh start.
Unfortunately, not every business has the resources to take advantage of the sudden influx of talent into the market - if your business was on pause over Christmas, it can take some time to catch back up. While hiring someone new is a great long-term solution to capacity shortages, in the short term it means holding interviews, assessing candidates, onboarding, and training. As a result, it often falls to the bottom of the priority list during busy periods like the start of the New Year - even when hiring new members of staff might actually lessen everyone else’s workload.
If your business is only just getting back to its recruitment cycle now, you might feel like you’ve missed out. But to recruit effectively, you need to be good at attracting talent all year round, and there are a few different ways you can stand out from the crowd. Even in industries facing talent shortages, the businesses with the strongest recruitment strategies won’t feel those shortages in the same way that less tenacious recruiters will.
At The People Pod, recruitment is what we do. Here, we’ve provided some tips you can use to accelerate your recruitment throughout the year, and encourage the most talented candidates to seek you out.
Write good job listings
Keep your job adverts up to date. Trends are constantly changing and, now that the start-of-the-year rush is over, candidates will move at a slower pace and have more time to search for new opportunities. This also means that they will evaluate adverts more carefully, especially talented candidates who know their worth. You need to ensure that your listing covers the basic information candidates need, but also take the opportunity to sell your company to potential recruits.
To younger recruits in particular, your company’s brand values are increasingly important. Think about how you can communicate what your business stands for in job advertisements to attract new talent. Research how competitors are advertising their jobs to see if there is anything you can learn.
The handy thing about job listings is that much of the text can be copied and pasted from one to the next; your company description, values, benefits, and maybe more. With this in mind, it’s a valuable use of resources to ensure any job listing templates you use are as strong as possible. You might also want to consider refreshing it every year to make sure that information is correct and that your job listings stand out from your competitors. If you’re successful enough, they might try to copy you, so you need to stay ahead to maintain your advantage.
Learn what candidates are looking for
Finding out how candidates heard about your opening or what attracted them to apply is a great way to focus your efforts where they matter. This can also help you to create better job adverts by targeting them specifically to the things candidates are interested in.
The other reason this is important is because it can help to improve your offering to new starters. Instinct says that offering more money will attract better candidates, but this has never been a hard and fast rule. In our experience as people-focused recruiters, we have seen countless examples of candidates choosing a lower offer over a higher one because the lower-paying opportunity came with benefits that made the overall package much more attractive.
There are many different benefits that might appeal to candidates beyond a generous salary offering, so think about whether you can offer flexible working arrangements, training opportunities, an interesting career path, travel or other perks. If you can, make sure these are highlighted in your job advert.
Looking for great candidates? The People Pod can help.
Both of these examples are about engaging with candidates on their level, and that’s something we’re really good at. The People Pod was founded on the belief that success is built on people. If you don’t have the resources to research candidates and proactively recruit, speak to us on 01204 589 555 about how we can help.