Competitive advantage:
Finding your point of difference to attract talent
We’ve been busy analysing the top brands that really stand out the crowd of great employers. Here’s a little insight from the experts into how to truly attract the best talent…
Good help isn’t hard to find when top talent looks for you.
Employers need to define recruitment strategies that will put them ahead of the competition and make them an employer-of-choice for candidates. And attracting the best candidates doesn’t just stop there. Once you’ve nailed your talent attraction, all else really does fall into place. Staff retention, employee satisfaction, company productivity…
Talent attraction and retention are highly linked – it’s worth noting that the best talent not only produces the best results, but also stays on for longer. It’s remarkable how much reward an organisation gets from top talent.
In a competitive hiring environment, the way to attract great talent is by providing a strong organisational culture and opportunities for people to grow. But this needs to be unique and stand out from the thousands of other companies all doing the same.
Here’s how you find your point of difference.
Know and market your company’s mission and values
We mention it every time, but it really can’t be stressed more – your company’s mission and values really are at the core of its success. The strongest workplaces comprise of like-minded people who feel motivated and driven by your business. One of the biggest reasons a candidate underperforms or even quits a job is due to not feeling connected to your company’s aspirations. So make sure these are clearly defined and resonate across the whole organisation, and are communicated to candidates throughout the recruitment process.
Candidates have a better time assessing their fit when you’re clear with your brand and values from the outset. Thus building your employer brand with the ideal candidate in mind can drastically reduce hiring costs.
Whilst determining your mission and values, stop and think about how your company does things differently. What makes your brand unique? Factor these in to ensure you have an exciting brand story that engages candidates and makes you memorable.
Build an employee-focused culture
Companies that attract and retain the best employees are those who think in terms of what employees want and need.
Consider what you can offer employees. Employees value work-life balance. They appreciate it when you offer flexible work schedules, for instance. Candidates and employees also appreciate career opportunities like on-the-job training and potential promotions.
The good news is that jobs in the service sector generally allow you to build this culture easier than other sectors. It comprises very people-focused industries, involving great communication, customer service and teamwork skills.
You could start by building a candidate persona. The first step to reaching the right candidate is understanding who they are. Candidate personas are a semi-fictitious profile of your ideal candidate. The practice is borrowed from sales and marketing, who use personas to understand those they are marketing or selling to, therefore better tailoring and targeting their efforts.
Build your persona with help from your employees and potential candidates. Get them involved with the process and ask them questions to find out what the general theme is amongst employees. This will not only help you market your brand easier to attract the best talent, but will help your HR team have a clearer understanding on who’s not suitable.
The more value you can bring to your employees, the more likely you are to be rewarded with high productivity and low turnover, and the best candidates eager to jump on board.
And you’d be surprised how many companies don’t have this at the forefront of their minds. So utilise this to stand out the crowd. A culture is exactly that – it’s unique – use it as your point of difference!
Do your research and be open to new ways of thinking
The above points are great for helping differentiate yourself amongst the competition. But above all, if you really want to dramatically boost your talent attraction and truly make your brand unforgettable to the best candidates, you’ve got to do your research.
Regularly spend time looking at other job ads for similar companies and industries. How do they engage with their candidates? Do they simply use job boards or do they try out different platforms such as social media or apps? What are the most common benefits and what can you offer that is different to these? What do employee reviews say about them?
The key thing to remember is the return of investment to your recruitment efforts. What may seem like something small. So invest money into an in-house recruiter or brand team, or ensure you’re spending continuous effort each month to research and strengthen your employer brand – and you’ll see drastic results in no time.
Thankfully, the team over here at Placed knows recruitment inside out. With these factors in mind Placed App uses expert knowledge to give employers a platform that enables them to really stand out – using bespoke brand pages, candidate demographics and targeted job ads. Why not give it a try?
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