5 Ways That You Can Attract More Candidates To A Role

by Startacus Admin

Want to attract more candidates to your advertised roles? These basic tips should help you do just that.

When handling the recruitment of new employees, whether you’re the business owner, a hiring manager, or an internal recruiter, there are times when it can feel very difficult to attract a healthy number of candidates to your business. This is especially valid today as the jobs market has become incredibly competitive, with candidates being presented with a lot of choices compared to previous years. This has naturally led to businesses improving their offers to entice more talented individuals to them instead of their competition. To help increase your chances of attracting more applicants to your advertised roles and also the chance of them accepting any offers you make, we’ve put together some tips for you to make use of. 

Showcase Your Ethics And Values

When a candidate has received multiple job offers and is deciding which to accept, they’ll likely spend some time researching your business even further to get a sense of what it would be like working for you. Finding ways to showcase your positive ethics and values is a great way to demonstrate what you and your business stand for. Today, many businesses are dedicating some of their efforts to championing certain causes, as well as fighting injustice in the world, and being clear about your goals relating to this will allow candidates to see if they align with your business. 

Promote A Positive Company Culture

A large part of company values comes down to the way in which their employees are treated in the workplace. If you’ve yet to take active steps towards creating a positive and healthy company culture within your business, now is the time to do so. Many individuals will choose one job over another based on whether employees are respected and are treated as more than just an employee or not. Whether you advertise it or not, evidence of the company culture that you’ve cultivated, whether good or bad, will get out to the public via reviews and word of mouth. Ensuring that your company is a great and friendly place to work with plenty of opportunities, as well as things like flexibility with work hours where possible, is very important and failing to promote these things could see your business being left behind in the wake of competitors. 

Be Clear With What Your Business Can Offer

When you keep your cards close to your chest in terms of what you can offer a candidate, it may improve your power during negotiations, but it’s going to increase the chances that candidates could be put off your business due to a lack of trust. Transparency can be a great tool and is a way of showing others that you care and strive to run your business the right way. This means that it may also be worthwhile listing exactly what the salary is for the position you’re hiring for. This shows that you aren’t trying to low-ball candidates excessively and that you value your employees. You’ll first want to understand what the average salary in the UK is in regard to that specific position, using sites like Check-a-Salary. This will give you a good idea of what a candidate will expect you to pay for their time and skill. You should also be clear about what sorts of benefits candidates can get, such as company cars and fuel reimbursement where needed.

Consider Referrals From Staff

Another good way to increase applicant numbers is by offering referral benefits to your team. Not only will this increase the size of your potential pool of applicants, but your team should have a general idea of who would be a good fit for the business or not. It’s unlikely that a member of your team is going to refer someone with no experience, knowledge, or interest in your industry, and these referrals can act as a sort of character reference, especially if you trust the judgement of your employees. Of course, don’t seek to reward employees for simply referring people. Instead, reward both them and the one they refer once you decide to hire them. This reduces the chance that employees will just send a selection of sub-par candidates your way. 

Be Positive With All Applicants And Candidates

Of course, regardless of whether you offer a candidate a job or not, or whether you even accept an application and move them on to the interview stage, you should remain as positive as possible. Applying for jobs is a stressful time for many, and a rejection from the interview or application stage can sting a lot. However, just because you turn down an applicant now doesn’t mean that they won’t be a great hire in the future. Failing to turn them down in as positive a manner as possible may lead to them rejecting a future offer. It’s possible that some of your best candidates in the future just aren’t the right fit for your business now, and if you upset those applicants now, then you’ll have burned a potentially valuable bridge. 

 

 

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Published on: 28th February 2022