10 free things you need to do now to attract great employees

As recruiters we are always busy, busy managing recruitment processes, speaking to candidates and hiring managers, sourcing candidates, getting involved in recruitment projects, solving problems and all sorts of other stuff, that’s unlikely to be your job as we are usually ridiculously helpful and employees know who we are!

So, to help, here are ten free, quick and easy ways to get more people to apply to your jobs. If you are not doing these things then you’ll be missing out on people who can fill your roles and help grow your company. I thought I would share these to make your recruiting efforts a little easier.

1. Look at your job adverts

Ask yourself these questions. Are they attractive? Does it make you excited to work at your organisation? Do they sell the benefits of working in your organisation? Would you apply for the job? Does it give the possible applicant a realistic preview of the role and what they would need to do to be successful?

If not, why not? Read this Lou Adler on Performance Based Job Descriptions and change the way you write your job descriptions!

There is also some excellent research into how males and females differ when it comes to applying for a job whereas women do not apply unless they’re 100% qualified so make sure you do not discourage applications from the ladies! Also, this Gender Decoder will enable you to check you are using words that will encourage all qualified people to apply.

2. Exit Interviews

Are people leaving? Do you know why? Are you even asking them? If not… why not? You could be missing out understanding why people are leaving your company. Exit interviews can be an excellent opportunity to get some constructive feedback and you may learn something that could quickly be changed to help prevent other employees leaving for a similar reason.

Survey Monkey’s Exit Interview survey is a good starting off point. Personally, I would do it face to face, rather than by online survey as you’ll be able to ask follow-up questions and clarify understanding to get much richer data!

Also — please share your findings with your recruitment team — they sell your organisation to potential employees and can help manage expectations of the person joining to replace the person who is leaving.

3. Apply for one of your own jobs

Put yourself into the role of the candidate, walk through the process. How long does it take to apply for your job? Do you find it painful/frustrating? Is the job so compelling and your company so amazing that people will keep going. Check your candidate experience!

Check your auto responses — when someone applies for your vacancy, what message do they get? An email? A web page saying thanks? Nothing?

If your messaging says something along the lines of “Thanks for your application, we get soooooo many applications so if you haven’t heard from us within a couple of weeks then just assume you’ve been rejected.” STOP READING THIS NOW AND CHANGE IT! Seriously, how would this make you feel? Rejected already? Like the company does not care about people interested in joining them? Please change it.

Put yourself in the candidate’s shoes — take a wander about. Does it feel good to apply for jobs at your company? If not, why not? What can you change to make it easier for candidates to apply?

4. Ask Candidates what they think

If your goal is to recruit awesome people, you want to closely look at your candidate experience. The easiest way of doing this is to ask your candidates what they think of your recruitment marketing, your application process, your rejection progress and learn from them. You can do this for free with Google Forms or Survey Monkey. You could drop a survey into the auto-acknowledgement email. Then listen to what the applicants are saying and make changes to your process!

Ideally, your goal is to get rejected candidates to recommend you as an employer. Read this — 80 percent of people who have been interviewed and rejected from Google report that they would recommend that a friend apply there. 80% is high — could you learn anything from this?

You can also apply to have your candidate experience benchmarked in Talent Board’sCandidate Experience Awards. You’ve got until 15th October to get your submission in (in Europe), just apply, complete the employer survey (takes around 2 hours) and you’ll have access to a rich source of data to benchmark yourself against! It’s worth having a look into.

5. Respond to ALL applications (even the ones you don’t interview)

You’ve likely heard this before… Job seekers who don’t hear back after applying for a job are much less likely to continue buying products or services from that company. Consider this genius Virgin Media Case Study — they went one step further and used the recruitment process and their candidate experience to turn rejected applicants into customers! How good would that be?

Realistically, how long does it take to politely thank a candidate for submitting an application and explain they have not been successful? You could set up a template email and send an email (ideally don’t blind copy people in). It’s not rocket science — it’s just good manners.

For people who have made the effort to take time off work and come in to meet you for an interview the least you can do is call them and give them meaningful feedback.

Be different… respond to everyone… it’s not going to hurt!

6. Glassdoor

If you are not on it, why not? Your company is likely to have some kind of presence. Many companies are terrified at the idea of Glassdoor, but you are missing out on a great free opportunity to showcase your company if you are not there.

Take it from me, if you are not on there, your competitors are and they are advertising on your profile. Glassdoor is massively increasing in popularity as it offers job seekers a glimpse into what it’s like to work in your organisation. According to Quantcast it is the 48th most popular website in the UK with around 1.5 million unique visits per month. It doesn’t look like it’s going away!

Take ownership of your account. It does not cost anything to:

• Claim your profile
• Update your company profile
• Post pictures of your company
• Showcase your benefits
• Put company updates on your page
• Respond to reviews (read through the Glassdoor training first though, I have cringed my way through some poor responses)
• You can even put job postings on there

You could even aim for OpenDoor accreditation which is a sign that your company is open and transparent. There are various how-to guides and training to get the most out of it. It would be worth encouraging your employees to write reviews — Glassdoor advises how to do this.

Of course, Glassdoor does quite a bit more for organisations who pay to use the site — but it’s not as expensive as you would think for small/medium sized organisations.

7. Use your Company Linkedin Page

LinkedIn is not going to solve all your recruitment problems, it is a useful tool, but if you want the all good stuff, you’re going to have to pay for it. (Haggle like hell though!!)

As a minimum, your company should have a free LinkedIn company page — it’s expected. Put pictures on, create content and share updates — get involved, engage your followers and grow your circle of influence.

Job seekers are likely to have a look at their potential new colleagues on LinkedIn, it may seem counter-intuitive, but if your employees have impressive profiles and can showcase their work, your organisation becomes more attractive to potential applicants. I was once told by a new starter that the reason they had applied to the organisation was that they had seen which organisations former employees had subsequently moved on to. I don’t know about you, but if I can get a talented, motivated and career-minded individual who is willing to invest 3–4 years working in my company, then I’ll take that! Why are we so reticent about talking about people moving on? It’s a fact of business.

Some organisations take new employee through LinkedIn (and other social media) training as a part of induction.

8. Find out where your employees are online and be there too!

It makes sense to me that you’ll like the people you’ve already brought into the organisation, so ask them where they spend their time online (use google forms or survey monkey) and be there too. (The idea is, if the people you’ve already hired spend time there then people like them must too).

If it’s Linkedin, Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Google Plus, Instagram or even Snapchat it’s worth having a presence. I wouldn’t join them all, maybe dip your toe into one or two. Learn what kind of content does well on these channels, create it (loads of free resources for this — try Canva to start). Encourage your employees to follow you then share openly, and often what it’s like to work for your company.

There are some amazing tools that allow your employees to create content for your business, speak to Next Wave Hire (Massive disclaimer — this tool is not free, you will have to pay for it, but it is awesome!).

9. Candidate Guides

Do you tell candidates what to expect? Do you tell candidates what kind of person does well in your organisation? Do you tell them what you are assessing in your recruitment process?

Create a quick guide about what to expect, manage candidate’s expectations, help your future employees prepare. This is another tool you can use to give insight into your organisation, show people you care and sell the benefits of working at your company. Then upload it to your website and send it out with interview confirmations.

10. Be human

Finally, it’s likely that you will be the first person in your organisation that a job seeker comes into contact with. Remember, you are representing your company — if you leave candidates with a poor impression of you, they will think the company is poor.

It’s easy sitting in front of a computer receiving applications for your roles and forgetting there is a real live person who has taken the time to find, research and apply for your vacancy. You don’t know their circumstances, you don’t know why they’ve applied, treat them with respect and dignity. Please make sure you ask about any reasonable adjustments that your organisation needs to make during the process. Read this and this.

Also, communicate with candidates — let them know what to expect, where they are in the process. Be nice, keep your promises, be honest and apologise if things go wrong. Be human — it doesn’t cost a thing!

About me

All of these suggestions are free to use and relatively simple to implement, but if you don’t have have the time/resource/inclination, hire me to implement all of the above (and discuss even more ways I can help you attract (and select & hire) the best employees). Get in touch at info@michelleminnikin.com or viawww.michelleminnikin.com.