Attracting the right candidates to your organization is incredibly important, but notoriously difficult without the right strategy in place. The services industry has a tight labor market where qualified individuals are constantly receiving job offers, so it’s essential to create compelling propositions that distinguish you from your competitors.
RL People has spent many years advising on candidate attraction strategies and are pleased to share four of our top recommendations:
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Define Your ‘Right’
Before engaging the labor market, define exactly what your ‘right’ is. Consider the required experience, skills, values, and cultural alignment a candidate needs to ensure success. Look at weaknesses across your teams and visualize how the right candidate can strengthen them. Collaborate with your colleagues or recruiters to sense check your thoughts and turn them into a list of essential requirements.
That list of essential requirements is the foundation of your job specification, which is used to create a job advertisement, so complete clarity over what is needed at this stage is essential to ensure you’re attracting your ‘right’.
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What’s in it for Them?
Complete clarity over what you need and a job advertisement that is aligned to that is great, but not enough. You also need to tell candidates why they should want to join your organization (what’s in it for them). Candidates look for competitive compensation, benefits, flexibility, stability, growth opportunities, and a culture that is aligned with their own values, so make sure you’re able to articulate what all of these are.
If your proposition doesn’t meet the needs of the right candidates, then you won’t attract them to your organization.
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Make Sure your Candidate Experience is Awesome
You’ve spent time defining what your ‘right’ is, made sure that’s reflected in your job specification and advertisements, and clearly outlined why candidates should want to join your organization… This has already put you ahead of most in your ability to attract the right candidates, but success compounds when you prioritize an awesome candidate experience.
At a minimum, candidates want an easy-to-understand process, their time to be respected (not 12 separate interviews…!), and to receive clear and transparent feedback. Unfortunately, this is a rarity, so holding yourself accountable to offering the above is distinguishing.
If you don’t, you’re deterring the right candidates from your organization and pushing them towards your competitors.
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Consider Using an Industry Specific Recruitment Partner
Getting all this right is a time-consuming task. If time is something you lack, then consider using a reputable, industry specific recruitment partner. There are some great recruiters out there who have spent years building relationships with qualified candidates, who can support you in pitching your organization, the opportunity, and it’s benefits to them. Use these recruiters to invest their time in attracting the right candidates to your organization, for you.
If you decide to outsource, confirming reputability is essential. Ask the recruiter for candidate testimonials or check out reviews so you’re confident your brand reputation will be protected, and candidates will be treated with utmost respect.
Whilst these are our top recommendations, there are more to discuss. If you’re a services business looking to review your strategy or looking for an industry specific recruitment partner with a track record of success, contact the RL People team at info@rl-people.com.
David Watson has over 10 years’ experience as a recruiter, supporting organizations in the USA, EMEA and APAC with hiring Reverse Logistics, Circularity, Aftermarket and Managed Services professionals. David currently serves as Managing Director of RL People, where he leads commercial and operational teams dedicated to providing executive recruitment and talent advisory services globally.
