High turnover rates, low employee productivity and low employee retention often start with a poor talent acquisition strategy. This not only impacts business financially, but also reputationally. Having a solid talent strategy is vital to attract a retain the best candidates for your business.
Here are some tips to help you succeed in your strategy for talent acquisition.
Align your talent acquisition strategy with your business goals
Before acquiring talent, it’s important to ensure the process and criteria align with the current and long-term goals for the business. Developing a roadmap can help in predicting future trends, market risks and generally provide your business with direction. Questions you should ask when developing your plan include:
- Where do you see your business going in the next five to 10 years?
- What new markets do you wish to enter?
- What is your predicted speed of expansion and growth?
- Where do you see the best skilled talent pool is for your requirements?
To maximise the potential of your candidate, it’s useful to acquire candidates that can be shifted within the company and have the potential to be suitable for promotion. The ideal candidate should also have some of the criteria that align with current and future company goals.
Have a strong employer brand
Conveying a strong employer brand is vital to attract and retain top talent. Strong branding enables people to be instantly aware of your values and purpose. Therefore, by communicating this, you will attract high quality candidates with similar values. Job seekers in your target market should get a clear idea of your business and what it stands for. This includes its culture, career opportunities, values and mission and general vibe.
Employee brand is so important that a 2017 LinkedIn study found that 80% of talent acquisition managers believe it has a big impact on their ability to hire remarkable talent.
When the hiring and onboarding process is often now solely virtual, it’s never been more important to have a strong and dynamic employer brand.
Some ways to help improve your employee brand include:
- A social media recruitment campaign
- Ensure your company’s social media pages convey your employer brand
- Contact local universities/jobs boards regarding promoting your positions
- Have a clear job description that conveys your company values, incentives and work culture
Fundamentally, to create a successful employer brand and overall talent acquisition strategy, you need to be able to answer and convey why your company is more appealing to work for than others.
Offer competitive benefits packages
Researching the typical benefits offered in your chosen market is important. Not offering a competitive benefits package mean you could be overlooked by top talent. According a survey, around 60% of people report that benefits and perks are a major factor in considering whether to accept a job offer.
Compensation and benefits packages expected will differ between countries. Carrying out thorough research beforehand means you’ll stand out from your competitors and find you’ll be less likely to have to negotiate to get the candidate you want.
Utilise technology
Talent acquisition is a complex process. Thankfully, there’s HR technology out there that can make your life easier. Tasks can be automated, keywords identified, and candidates can be screened in seconds. Technology can drastically improve efficiency in the global talent acquisition process. With AI, you can gain a deeper insight into candidate behaviour and personality, allowing you to make a better more informed choice.
The use of data and technology can also find out things like where your top talent comes from. It’s helpful for the HR team to communicate with marketing to refine job adverts, careers pages and emails etc. Data can ascertain if candidates aren’t filling out certain questions. By testing job descriptions, you may find using different language or phrasing is more effective in attracting more of the right candidates. Through the use of analytics, you’re able to gain insight into whether certain pages or pieces of content are putting candidates off applying.
Re-evaluate regularly
Utilise data and feedback to make constant improvements. Set benchmarks and targets and consider pain points and how you might overcome these.
Metrics to help you gage success of your talent acquisition strategy can include:
- Talent retention rate
- Social media engagement rates of your chosen target country/s
- Candidate quality
- Value added by the candidate to your business
Next steps
For a successful talent acquisition strategy, it’s important to align your candidate search with the criteria to fulfil to your business goals. Attracting the right talent is a combination of making your business appealing both culturally and for career progression. Using data, testing and improved employer branding, you can attract and retain remarkable talent for your business.
If you need a partner to help facilitate you acquire talent, in your home country or abroad, speak to a member of our team today.
Written by Josh Smith