5 Effective Ways to Attract Top Talent in a Highly Competitive Job Market

Talented job seekers are everywhere nowadays, scattered across the globe. What’s more, amazing brands and employers are equally present, and the modern employee truly has a lot of opportunities to explore. You might think that the job market is competitive in the sense that job seekers are finding it difficult to land a good job, but in reality, things are quite the opposite. Companies are nowadays struggling to find, attract, and retain the most talented professionals in their fields, simply because the competition is too fierce and there’s always a competitor brand that offers better compensation, workplace culture, and other perks.

If you want to stay relevant as an employer in the increasingly competitive job market, you have to adapt your strategy on all fronts – research, marketing, employer branding, and more. That’s why today we’ll be going over the five key tips that will help you attract the best of the best in your industry. Here’s what you need to know.

Start with an employee profile

To start off, you need to focus on diligent research and data collection that will allow you to create detailed profiles of your ideal employees and candidates. After all, how are you to attract the best applicants to your company if you don’t know what you’re looking for? Building a detailed employee profile will give you insight into other areas of your business as well, and will go a long way towards improving your company culture, employer branding, and more. With that in mind, you can start by analyzing your requirements, the available positions in your company, and what they entail, after which you can move on to market and employee research.

It’s also important that you keep an eye on your competition in order to uncover the secrets behind effective recruitment strategies, and what they might be doing wrong – the latter will allow you to avoid their mistakes and thus minimize unwanted turnover. Once you have crafted the ideal employee profile, you can uncover their unique needs and what they’re looking for in an employer, which will help you improve your offer.

Provide what the modern employee needs

Nowadays, it’s not the employee who needs to fight to get the job, it’s the company that needs to fight to secure the top talent for itself. The most talented and experienced job seekers can pick and choose the companies they work with, and they will research potential employers meticulously to find the one with the best perks and long-term potential.

You might have been told before that millennials and Gen-Zers don’t care so much about the salary as they do about the company’s culture and collective, but the reality is quite different. Yes, you need to have a great workplace culture, but fair and above average compensation is crucial if your goal is to attract the best of the best. What’s more, you need to develop comprehensive advancement programs and show the candidate that your company is the place where they can take their career forward. 

Employee Needs

Elevate your employer brand

Of course, one of the most important elements of a successful talent acquisition strategy is the brand itself. In a sea of faceless corporations with which employees are simply unable to establish a meaningful connection, you want to be the brand that inspires, captivates, and empowers potential employees to want to become a part of your family. 

This is why many business leaders are nowadays taking a more professional approach to employer branding in order to create a company image and identity that truly resonates with the modern job seeker. This brand should boast the right values, mission, vision, and culture, all of which aim to create a deeper relationship with the employee collective and inspire them to stay. Without a better employer brand, you can’t hope to attract the best employees, nor can you hope to keep them at your side when the first new offer comes along.

Optimize your marketing strategy

With your employer brand serving as a foundation for your recruitment strategy, you can move on to creating a powerful marketing campaign. Unfortunately, it’s no longer enough to simply post a job opening on your site and on social media to attract talented individuals, as you need to take a comprehensive approach to marketing and brand dissemination.

Be sure to invest in content marketing and SEO with an emphasis on your new job positions, create compelling stories and narratives, and use storytelling to reel the candidates in. Disseminate your content on social media, other authority sites in your industry, and be sure to reach out to prospective employees on relevant forums and online platforms. Try to generate as many positive reviews as you can to build social proof and your brand’s trustworthiness.

Marketing Your Business

Let your employees recommend talented job seekers

Another great way to boost talent acquisition is to inspire and encourage your long-term employees to recommend people from their personal and professional circles. You can do this directly by asking them to recommend talented individuals, or you can inspire them to share your job openings and craft their own stories of your brand on their social media accounts to encourage potential applicants to reach out. Both ways are effective at building social proof for your brand and helping you attract quality candidates quickly. 

Wrapping up

The modern job market is becoming more competitive with each passing year, more so for companies than talented job seekers. If you want to attract the best of the best to your company, be sure to invest in these tactics in 2020 and beyond.


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