It is not an understatement to say that finding new talent in this day and age is hard. Sure, there are plenty of new graduates, retirees (who still want to work), and mid-career workers who are looking for a new break. But if you want to be above your competition, you need to find talent who can get you there. If you want to be number one, everything should be seamless—from the acquisition of new talent to the onboarding to the introduction of office culture.
Do you know that you are losing twice as much money when you lose employees than when you retain them? Unfortunately, retaining employees is also a kind of luck. If you are not lucky enough to have employees who want to stick by your side, then you really have to spend those few extra thousands of bucks to find new ones to replace them.
There’s no exact formula for employee retention. At best, you just need to compensate them well. At worse, they’re going the distance, asking for a work-life balance, something which you don’t even know how to provide. Somehow, you need to find out what will make them stay from the moment you first hired them. If you are in the middle of filling up your employee sheet, here are some great sources of talent nowadays:
Job Boards
You can either love them or hate them, but these job boards are literally your way to landing that great talent you need. Baby Boomers, Millennials, and Generation Z are all posting on job boards and career sites in hopes of snagging their dream jobs. For starters, you can use a multiple-job board posting platform that will simultaneously post job openings on different job boards, career sites, and social media channels.
Referrals
The biggest mistake that employers do is not to ask the present crop of employees for referrals. If your present employees are talented and skillful, surely they run around the same crowd. They may have classmates, friends, former workmates, and acquaintances who you can tap. Do you know that 48% of employers said that their best hires come from recommendations and referrals from their employees?
Social Media Channels
Recruitment managers are increasingly being dependent on social networks. More than 95% of hiring managers say they have recruited from LinkedIn, especially if they are outsourcing from outside the country. Around 30% said they have hired from Facebook in the past year while 16% said they found their new employees from Twitter. But it’s not just your present hiring process that benefits from social media. Social media channels are a great way to forge partnerships with possible future candidates.
Networking Events
Every event is an opportunity to network. Spend time in the right places so you can spend time with the right people. The good thing about these events is that they are not full of pressure. If you met someone and immediately had a connection, then good. But if you didn’t find someone who can be a possible fit for your business, then that’s good, too. The opportunity will open soon enough as long as you continue attending these events.
One of the advantages of networking events is you have someone to talk to when you hire someone who might have worked with these industry leaders in the past. You can get referrals and recommendations. You can ask for advice instead of finding out on your own that a certain talent will not fit your culture.
Let Them Come to You
If you are an employer of the year, talent is going to knock on your door. You don’t have to seek them. But not everyone can be an employer of the year or even month, of course. What you need to do is publish activities that your company does regularly. Be known in the industry in terms of your mission and culture. Good and skillful employees are going to want to work with you. When you focus on your core values, you will attract employees who have a connection with your corporate mission and vision.
Do not close your doors to other methods of recruiting employees, and that includes sourcing them from the traditional geographical coverage. Yes, you can work with people from outside the country, providing them only with tools that will make collaboration and teamwork possible. Many companies have started this shift last year and it will soon be a part of the overarching success of the recruitment process. So, look beyond the box and figure out where your company will benefit from the most.
