Attracting Top Talent Means Spending Big Bucks Right? No!

Suppose you’re a small company looking for the best candidates. In that case, you already know that you’re competing with the big guys for their attention.

Even if you’re working with a staffing partner to help you attract, source, and hire great people, it’s still important that your online presence be attractive to potential hires.

And you may be thinking that these larger businesses have larger budgets to spend on marketing their (better?) benefits/perks, etc.

So you’re sunk.

Not so fast: recruitment marketing doesn’t require deep pockets

Yes, these larger companies probably do have more funds to spend on employer branding, slick company videos/brochures, etc.

Yet, the internet and social media continue to level the playing field. While you could spend time advertising and creating slick videos, etc., you don’t need to.

Many of today’s highly effective recruitment marketing tactics mean the only thing you’ll need to spend is your time

Even a one-person HR department with no marketing professionals with whom to partner can showcase the company in a way that makes it attractive to top talent.

• Focus on your online presence.

You undoubtedly already have a website. Make sure it’s designed such that it’s easy for people who come to your site to find what they came there looking for.

So make sure that your pages download quickly, that your menu buttons provide a clear “map “or “path” to the different areas of your site.

This is called providing a “good user experience.” Not only will a great u/x help site visitors find the information they seek, but it’s also an important part of how search engines rate your site. Provide a good user experience, and you may find that the site ranks higher in search results.

Make sure your site is easy to see and navigate on a smartphone. Many people now access the internet primarily via smartphones. Many job seekers actually search for information about your company via their phones.

• Blog about what it’s like to work at your company.

Most employers have some type of blog. Talk to current employees and write blog posts about why they like working there. (This also helps celebrate employees and is an excellent employee engagement/satisfaction tactic.)

• Broadcast your company’s blog posts, benefits/perks, employee stories/testimonials on social media

Posting links to the blog posts you create helps your followers move to your website. Once there, they will spend time getting to know your company.

They may even root around the site and see those blog posts about happy employees we mention above.

• Don’t be shy about broadcasting your employee benefits on social media.

 After all, it used to be that candidates really didn’t learn about benefits and perks until they were either offered a position or pretty darn close to it.

But why wait? Your blog posts and social media updates all can – every now and then – mention that you offer three weeks of vacation right out of the gate to all employees. Or that you offer 50 percent educational/certification reimbursement after six months. Or that one fortunate employee wins a Mercedes-Benz each year. (Kidding!)

• Talk your talk

Do you want top talent to know that you, for example, take diversity, equity, and inclusion really seriously in your corporate culture? Say so! Write blog posts about it and then post links to that post on your social media channels. If you’re proud of how much your employees enjoy hanging out with each other (as evidenced by the voluntary weekly pizza parties you hold, even if they’re now virtual), take pictures of them and post them to your social media pages.

Writing blog posts and sharing on social media will add little to your recruiting budget because you probably already use the tools needed: a website, blog posts, social media channels, etc.

If you’d like more ideas on how to position your organization as a great place to work, we’d be happy to help.  Just send us a question or give us a call!