Thanks to technological growth, businesses can now hire top talents from across all labor markets in the world. Talented young people are aware of this new reality; they now start exploring the best employment opportunities globally long before they finish college. They know they don’t need to move abroad to work for foreign companies because technology has made remote and flexible working possible. Young talents are also not scared to relocate anywhere on the planet if a lucrative employment opportunity presents itself.
Locally, big corporations and multinational companies are spending big bucks to draw in quality candidates. Quality candidates are spoilt for choice. Within this reality, employers cannot afford to sit back and wait for the best talents to show up at the door. They must be more proactive in attracting and retaining the best of the best from around the world.
As an employer, big or small, how can you make your voice stand out in the global labor market and win over the most in-demand talents? Here are 6 tips for you:
1. Create a comprehensive recruitment strategy
As with any other strategy, a recruitment strategy should lay down your plan for getting the attention of the best talents in the labor market, recruiting, and onboarding them. Having a recruitment strategy has many benefits including:
- It promotes meritocracy in your hiring process. The most deserving candidates get the job.
- It enhances transparency. All applicants are able to see how and why your hiring process panned out the way it did.
- It builds consistency of rules and hiring criteria in all your recruitment drives. Applicants know what to expect right from when they send in their application letters.
- Increased transparency and consistency enhance your hiring process’ credibility and reputation within the labor market.
How to create an effective recruitment strategy:
- With the help of employees, scrutinize and critique your existing strategy, if any. Which existing procedures or processes do you feel are either outdated or ineffective? What needs improvement or total overhaul to make your recruitment processes effective, equitable, reliable, and efficient? and effective.
- Create a list of things to add to the new strategy that didn’t exist in the old strategy. The labor market keeps changing, so it’s unlikely that your existing strategy is comprehensive by today’s standards. For example, inclusivity and affirmative action demands in the global labor market are more today than they ever have been.
- Identify and specify the most appropriate places to find candidates across all experience levels. For instance, where should you go searching for entry-level employees? Where can you go hunting for mid or top-level employees?
- Create your strategy-implementation budget.
- Create a detailed structure for how the new strategy will be implemented.
- With the help of existing employees, start implementing your hiring strategy.
2. Write good job descriptions
A well-written job description is what tells qualified candidates that you’re a worthy employer. It tells them that you have a clear recruitment strategy and that you’re clear on what you need from the labor market. To write a good job description, you should focus on the:
- Quality of content: Don’t just list employee responsibilities, required skills, and job expectations. Use the job description to paint a mental picture of your company culture. What’s the benefits package? How big is your existing team? How diverse is the existing team? What has the company achieved within its niche- any known industry awards?
- Brand tone: Your job description should be in a similar tone to your website, marketing materials, and everything else associated with your brand. For example, if your brand uses a lighthearted, goofy tone to appeal to customers, the same tone will work for potential candidates. A candidate who doesn’t like your brand tone will struggle to adapt to your company culture if hired.
- Readability: Utilize headers and bullet points to make the job description easier to scan and read.
- Call to action: Let the readers know how to apply, when to apply, and most importantly, the urgency at which they should treat the application process. The call to action should convince potential applicants to drop whatever they’re doing to first attend to the application process.
3. Go beyond domestic borders
With today’s innovative workforce management possibilities, e.g. working with an Employer of Record (EOR), it is easy now to expand overseas and hire top talents in the international business realm. You now can outsource your HR needs to an EOR, making the EOR the legal employer of your international employees. The EOR takes legal responsibility for all HR-related tasks including hiring, payroll processing, payroll management, employee contracts management, tax compliance, etc.
4. Offer a compelling Employee Value Proposition (EVP)
Your EVP encompasses the benefits that top talents accrue/enjoy as a result of working for you, both monetary and non-monetary. Today, your EVP should focus not only on remuneration but also on employee support, recognition, and values. It should convince potential employees that by working for you, they will be exposed to many quality opportunities for both professional and personal growth. The increasing popularity of remote and hybrid work has also redefined how employees see employment benefits. Many talented employees are excited by the possibility of working from home and achieving the elusive work-life balance.
Your EVP should also include:
- Traditional employee benefits such as health insurance, paid leave, and retirement benefits.
- Modern benefits such as paid (partially or fully) gym memberships.
- Career progression opportunities through transparency in job promotion.
- Career development opportunities through mentoring and career guidance.
- A positive working environment, e.g. meaningful team building events.
- Effective communication systems
5. Leverage technology to retain talented employees
Replace manual recruiting processes with hiring software. Good software uses artificial intelligence (AI) to analyze historical data and then predict future outcomes. You can use this technology to send questionnaires to job applicants, screen them, and isolate candidates who have the desired qualities. The technology can also screen social media profiles to assess the suitability of different applicants. This ability to isolate candidates by their preliminary qualifications boosts your reputation; you don’t waste candidates’ time and money by calling them to interviews they’re bound to fail. Technology also helps you retain employees by enabling remote and flexible working, continuous professional development through eLearning, and providing clear channels of remote collaboration.
6. Build an attractive work culture
Work culture dictates the employee experience in your company. It has a direct impact on team morale, workplace engagement, employee happiness, and job satisfaction. To make your workplace culture attractive to top talents:
- Set clear goals for each employee and each department.
- Be consistent in the promotion and supervision of the goals.
- Allow people to have a good time, laugh a little, and have lighthearted moments regardless of the seriousness that the job demands.
- Plan social outings to build authentic friendships.
- Have an employee recognition program for exemplary work.
- Promote inclusivity and cultural diversity.
- Prioritize respect for everyone’s privacy, culture, history, accomplishments, etc.
- Prioritize employee feedback.
- Encourage open communication and transparency.
- Create and finance learning opportunities for employees whenever possible.
- Don’t impose a culture on employees.
Final word
One of the biggest challenges that most employers struggle with is how to attract and retain top talent. The competition for top talents today is unprecedented. It’s high time that you aligned your recruitment strategies to meet today’s labor market if you want to stay attractive to qualified applicants.
