Hey, Clients! Is Your Company Attractive to Top Talent?

Hiring top talent

Photo credit: Flickr Creative Commons user Nathan Stephens (groundswell).

If you’re having a hard time finding and keeping superstar employees, join the club.  71% of Canadian senior executives surveyed in a recent study conducted by accounting and business advisory firm Richter agreed that recruiting top talent remains a major challenge.

And it’s not getting any easier.  Many of the respondents reported having to “increase salary ranges in order to attract and retain quality employees.”

Exceptional talent is valuable – critical – to business success. But not every executive is prepared to add an extra zero or two to employee paychecks to make it happen.   And you know what? Great employees want more from a job than just a salary.

Case in point: In a joint survey conducted by CareerBuilder and Inavero, 70% of the 4500 job seekers surveyed said that they would accept a job for less money at an organization they’d most like to work for, even if the salary offer was 5% less than their lowest acceptable salary.

That’s why we need to look at more sustainable strategies for attracting top talent. As JobStock contributor Susan Miller says, “You need to be able to build a persuasive case as to why your employment opportunity is better than your competitors.”  It’s time to think outside the dollar sign.

Make your argument. Here are 3 powerful ways to show rock star talent why they should work for you:

1.    Amp up your web presence

For top talent, the job hunt often begins online. Your website and social media presence could be their first impression of your company, so it’s worth the time  it takes to maintain your social profiles and keep your website design current and usable.

2.    Build a remarkable company culture

“More than money, title, or anything we traditionally believe matters, attracting and keeping talent depends on your company culture,” says Forbes contributor Brock Blake.

So what does a remarkable company culture look like? It’s “ a positive work environment that fosters creativity and enables people to perform at their best” (Blake).

When people are happy and thriving at work, they’re happy to tell others how awesome their company is.

“You have to start from inside your company to attract new, stellar employees from the outside,” says Miller. Put your employees first.

3.    Provide transparent job descriptions

Transparent job descriptions deliver all of the requirements and responsibilities of a position in a clear and concise format so that busy job seekers can identify their eligibility for the role as quickly as possible.

Using straightforward and confident language to describe the position will help set your description apart from the hundreds of other career postings a candidate could be sifting through that day. This is your opportunity to ‘get real’ with potential employees and show them what your company culture is all about.

Don’t try to dazzle candidates with quirky language and boastful claims. Take a page from Brooke Allen’s book and be honest about who you’re looking for and why.

Now that’s how you attract top talent.

What do you look for in a superstar employee? Let us know in the comment section below! 

References

“52 percent of execs say in-house expertise not worth paying for.” 15 May 2013. Hrreporter.com

Blake, Brock. “Does Your Company Culture Attract Rockstar Talent?” 10 April 2013. Forbes.com

Miller, Susan. “The Talent Wars: How You Can Attract Better Employee to Your Business.” 2 May 2013. Jobstock.com

Rasmussen, Brent. “Employment Brand? Study Says Half of Companies Don’t Have One.” 24 August 2011. Tlnt.com