When you need to find top talent for an open position, it’s common to turn to resources like job boards to find candidates. The issue is, when there’s a talent shortage, traditional approaches may not yield the best results. Instead, you need to get a bit creative and turn to resources that your competitors aren’t using, increasing the odds you’ll capture more attention from highly-skilled candidates.
There are quite a few uncommon places to find your next employee. If you aren’t sure where to begin, here are five worth exploring.
1. Employee Referrals
In many cases, your employees are your biggest asset when you need to find talent. By requesting – and potentially compensating them for – referrals, you get to tap the power of their networks. Plus, since your workforce knows what it takes to excel at your company and most professionals won’t refer someone they aren’t willing to put their name behind, the odds of high-quality matches go up significantly.
2. Value-Adding Content
Engagement is a critical part of maintaining a robust talent pool. As a result, you need to do more than post vacancy announcements on your social media accounts. Instead, you also need to feature value-adding content, giving professionals a reason to remain connected with your company beyond a job search.
Create informational job posts that are designed to help professionals thrive. That way, you’re offering more than a laundry list of openings that may or may not be relevant to everyone, increasing the odds that top talent will remain engaged long-term.
3. Attend Industry Events
Generally speaking, highly-skilled professionals don’t spend much time at job fairs and recruitment events, mainly because they don’t struggle when searching for new positions. If you want to connect with those professionals, industry events are a better bet since many leading candidates are diligent about remaining informed and expanding their network. By also attending, you can engage with them directly, increasing the odds of making a connection.
4. Talent CRM
Talent CRM solutions can be a boon when you need to find employees. It gives you the ability to boost candidate engagement and nurture relationships while determining which professionals are likely to be the best fit.
Plus, it gives you a way to track past applicants and reconnect if a new job that fits their skills comes available. This is incredibly beneficial for ensuring that second-place candidates from other openings aren’t overlooked for future needs, allowing you to invite known quantities to reapply with ease.
5. Consider Your Customers
While you don’t want to turn customers into employees if it hurts your business, that doesn’t mean there aren’t situations where considering a one for role isn’t a bad idea. For example, if you find that contact is looking for a new opportunity that would no longer cause them to be a customer, you may want to explore this option. After all, they are already a fan of your product or service and likely know it well. Plus, they understand the customer side of the equation, which could make them an asset.
Ultimately, each uncommon place to find your next employee above is worth exploring. Working with a staffing firm is also a wise move if you need to secure top talent quickly. If you’re working to fill a vacancy, the staff at The Advance Group wants to hear from you. Contact us today.
