As most businesses already know, hiring isn’t exactly easy right now. With COVID-19 safety concerns combined with an above-average rate of employees quitting, a growing number of businesses want to rebuild their workforce but simply can’t find people who want to work. In light of this, we recently went back to basics with an overview of three building blocks to attract new hires to your organization. However, if you’ve got the basics down but are still struggling to hire, the tips in this article will help you level up your hiring game even more.
Attractive Job Postings
Poorly written job postings can prove a serious obstacle to getting applicants. It’s important, as recruiting guru Katrina Kibben reminds us, that recruiters and hiring managers understand what they’re looking for in their new hires and use this understanding to write job postings that are simple and effective.
If you offer some or all of the core benefits discussed in our last post, you should showcase them in your postings with concrete examples and as part of an engaging story.
For example, instead of a deli owner writing, “We teach valuable skills,” they can explain that downtime will be filled with instruction on sales and de-escalation techniques. And instead of saying, “We offer flexibility,” an employer can advertise that employees have a range of shifts to choose from on a weekly basis or have the option to complete their work at any time of day, so long as weekly deadlines are met.
The Hiring Process
But even if you have the most attractive job posting, it won’t mean a thing if your hiring process is impossible for applicants to get through. The more time it takes to complete an application, the more applicants will decide it isn’t worth it.
And the longer a candidate has to wait for an offer, the more likely they’ll be to turn down that job offer—sometimes, as recruiter Adam Karpiak illustrates, even when they don’t have another job lined up.
As frustrating and unfair as that may feel, it’s exactly why first impressions are so important with your new hire. Make sure your Careers page is well laid-out, that instructions are clear and easy-to-follow, and that your application is intuitive and not too tedious.
If you’re posting on platforms like LinkedIn or Indeed, job seekers can simply “apply with their profile” to submit their auto-filled information to you for review. Taking advantage of a system like SDP’s ApplicantStack (below) can also help speed up the job posting and applicant tracking process while giving your candidates a user-friendly application experience.
Struggling to hire? Contact us for a free demo of SDP’s Hiring Solution here.
Career Development Opportunities
Another factor to consider is opportunity for growth. It may be that the positions you need to fill don’t come with an exciting career path or teach the kind of skills that employees are hoping to gain. But that’s not set in stone. Both the employer and the employee choose what skills are learned and used in every position.
Example: Local Deli Cashier
Imagine, for a moment, a local deli that needs to hire a person to take orders at the register. Just based on the job title, you may imagine the owner struggling to hire someone for the position. The job market might consider this job “low skill.” However, the owner of this deli doesn’t think of the job that way or advertise it that way.
Now, the owner doesn’t use the gimmick of giving the job a fancier title than what it entails. Instead, he sets the job up to provide skills training for more advanced positions in customer service or sales.
In the first few days, the new hire will learn the menu and the layout of the register, but training won’t stop there. In the lulls between rushes, they’ll also learn techniques for talking to customers, de-escalating tense situations, upselling, and the like—training that people in customer service and sales would expect to receive. Later, the new hire might even learn more complex elements of running a small business.
The Takeaway
In this example, the owner knows that high employee turnover is simply the nature of the business. He understands that employees will, sooner or later, take their training and skills to other jobs. And that’s the point.
The aim here is to cultivate a reputation in the community as an excellent place for customers to grab a meal, and an excellent place for employees to start learning marketable skills they’ll use throughout their careers. The result? Increasing the size of both the deli’s future applicant pool and its profits.
Next Steps
If you’ve been struggling to hire lately, we hope you find these tips helpful for your next recruiting effort. If you missed Part 1 of this article, you can check it out here. And if you’d like to learn more about ApplicantStack or paperless onboarding in SDP Connect, then let’s talk!
Need a little extra support with new hire compliance? No matter your situation, SDP has layers of HR support that can help. Learn more about our HR Support Services here. And don’t forget to follow us on Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn for even more business tips & news!
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