Want to keep top talent? Be a top company

With the nation essentially at full employment, companies must be on their A-game to recruit top talent. Businesses need to keep workers from joining competitors and ensure new hires add value to let the company grow and flourish.

Eleesha Martin and Sarah Brennan talked about recruiting strategies and steps companies can take to appeal to top job candidates.

Martin is a senior recruiting specialist for G&A Partners, a human resources and administrative outsourcing firm providing HR expertise and insights on company culture, workplace dynamics and benefits.

Brennan is chief advisor at Accelir. She is a sought-after global speaker and trainer. Brennan focuses on innovative yet accessible talent acquisition, employee engagement and the future of work strategies that connect with business outcomes.

Both of them compared how their companies differentiate themselves from competitors when it comes to workplace culture.

“Make sure your differentiation starts early with your job posting and career site,” Brennan said. “If you can replace your name and use your competitors, it’s not differentiated.

“How are you showing those things to differentiate?” she said. “One of the biggest mistakes any company can make is to believe they don’t have competition — especially in recruiting. If you don’t think you have it, you aren’t looking in the right places.”

Show your ID

A company’s identity is a key differentiator.

“There are many levels of competition,” Brennan said. “A lot of clients I’ve had in manufacturing and nonprofits have a hard time with this concept. They struggle when developing identity.”

G&A Partners bring their workers into the process.

“We have a weekly eNPS — employee Net Promoter Score — program,” Martin said. “It asks our staff to rate G&A and provide feedback on what’s working plus areas to improve.

“This allows leadership to immediately remedy issues that could impact employee morale or the company culture,” she said.

Recruiting tactics vary by company with varying success.

“We focus on strategic sourcing tactics to find passive candidates who have the knowledge, skills and abilities to be effective in the roles we hire for,” Martin said. “We also encourage employees to refer individuals they know and would want to work with to help fill openings.”

Lessons learned

Brennan took a deeper look at how companies learn from mistakes.

“What has worked where you previously worked but doesn’t in your current company?” she said. “Not all great strategies work equally well when culture changes.

“You can have a culture but not define or control it,” Brennan said.

She said these elements work well in recruiting:

  • Honestly in the process.
  • Fast responses.
  • Proactive strategies or sourcing.
  • Meaningful interviews.
  • Treating candidates with respect.
  • Not relying on one source.
  • Referrals.

“For companies that can’t do this for every hire, one client I worked with put in place a drawing for an all-inclusive vacation,” Brennan said. “It cost them $3,000. They increased referrals 125 percent.”

Martin described the G&A job applicant process.

“Once we’ve identified a viable applicant, our next steps include an initial phone screen, assessments, a face-to-face interview with the hiring manager and keeping the candidate in the loop until a hiring decision is made,” she said.

“Applicants that aren’t a good fit for the role are reviewed and considered for other roles,” Martin said. “Another option is that we send them a notification that we aren’t moving forward with them at this time but will keep their resume on file for future openings.”

Optimally, this won’t be a permanent break.

“The most impactful change any company can make to its hiring process is finding a way to keep potential future candidates already in your system engaged,” Martin said.

Brennan had a question for HR leaders in general.

“When is the last time you actually applied for a job on your own career site?” she said. “I challenge you do to so.

“As a new applicant, find and apply,” Brennan said. “Many of you will be surprised at how long it takes. The issue is usually the company’s decisions, not your applicant tracking system.”

Onboarding trials

Many companies err when recruiting new team members shortly after the new hires walk through the doors.

“Onboarding is directly tied to retention, customer satisfaction rates and profitability,” Brennan said. “Which one is your executive team willing to give up for not doing it right?”

Martin concurred, adding another element.

“You must provide new hires with proper onboarding and training,” she said. “If new hires don’t feel like they are being set up for success at the onset, it’s hard to convince them otherwise later.”

The manner in which jobs are posted have the greatest initial effect on who applies.

“Start the job posting by using short phrases,” Martin said. “Provide a brief highlight of the company to catch the candidate’s attention early on. Make the job posting short and easy to read. Then candidates can quickly decide if they are qualified for or interested in the position.”

Brennan had suggestions to make sure companies get the “right” candidates:

  • Don’t post a job description. A job posting is a marketing tool.
  • Don’t use all fluffy language. Talk about the job and what it does, the value it has and so on.
  • Check it for diversity bias.

Martin and Brennan weighed the employee referral process. Does it yield better candidates compared to traditional applications?

“If done right, the employee referral process can be just as effective,” Martin said. “Offering a bonus for referrals who are hired and stay longer than 60 to 90 days is a great way to incentivize employees to provide more qualified applicants.”

Brennan also endorsed employee referrals.

“There is a ton of research that shows this is truth,” she said. “If your company doesn’t think this works, then what you have is a culture and engagement, not recruiting issue. You will never be able to recruit your way out of a bad culture.

Don’t fault referrers

“A referral doesn’t require a hire,” Brennan said. “Bad referral hires aren’t the fault of the employees who referred them. It’s the fault of HR and managers who hired them.”

A company’s brand is a potential employer’s resume for candidates weighing whether applying would be worth their while. Businesses and workers hire each other.

“The employer brand is not just about marketing to get the company’s name out there,” Martin said. “The elements of your brand — mission, values, culture — speak loud and clear as to who the company is and what potential candidates can expect if they work at your company.

“A positive employer brand can make the recruiting process so much easier,” she said. “Top talent will be more likely to respond to you and even proactively seek out your company on their own.”

Companies create their brand, or it’s created for them.

“If you don’t think you have an employment brand, you do,” Brennan said. “You just aren’t the one controlling and defining it. Someone else is. Don’t do that.

“A company with a bad employment brand or perception will pay 10 percent more on average for salary and benefits than one with a positive or neutral perception,” she said. “Employment brand impacts bottom-line results.”

Recruiters have a central role to better position their company to ideal candidates.

“They have to understand what the company is striving to achieve and what type of individuals can help them achieve those goals,” Martin said.

“From there, it’s all about finding top talent that matches the profile,” she said. “Provide them with a value proposition that clearly defines what’s in it for them if they join the company.”

About The Author

Jim Katzaman is a manager at Largo Financial Services and worked in public affairs for the Air Force and federal government. You can connect with him on Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn.

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