Your company is only as good as the people who work there. This makes talent acquisition (and employee retention) critical to the long-term success of your organization.
Luckily, there are a lot of talented people out there, and many of them may be interested in making a change. 40% of global workers who participated in this Mckinsey & Company study said that they might leave their jobs soon, citing the top reasons for doing so as lack of career development (41%) and advancement, inadequate compensation (36%), and uncaring and uninspiring leaders (34%). This represents a significant opportunity to attract even more capable candidates to your organization.
However, considering why employees are interested in leaving their current roles, and ensuring they don’t run into the same issues in your organization, is just one way to effectively enhance your talent acquisition efforts. There’s more you can do to ensure workers want to not only come to your company but also to stay there — and we have tips to help you improve your talent acquisition strategy.
The Difference Between Talent Acquisition and Recruiting
Although talent acquisition and recruiting are connected, they aren’t interchangeable terms.
Recruiting is the process of finding suitable candidates to fill vacant positions. HR professionals and managers create job listings and advertise them in places their ideal candidates would be. Then, phone screenings and interviews usually follow as those involved in the hiring process determine who would be the best candidate for the role.
On the other hand, talent acquisition involves creating an ongoing strategy for finding top talent, drawing them in, bringing them on board, and keeping them with the company long-term. Unlike recruiting, talent acquisition doesn’t rely on job openings to happen. Instead, it’s a continuous process of building a strong team.
At the end of the day, you need both recruiting and talent acquisition. But there are specific methods to use if you are looking to improve talent acquisition in your company.
Three Ways to Improve Talent Acquisition in Your Company
Because talent acquisition is an ongoing project, you’ll need to dedicate intentional time to it. You’ll also need to document a definitive strategy for continuously acquiring talent and keeping it. That strategy should include the following if you want your talent acquisition efforts to be worthwhile.
Define Your Ideal Candidates
First and foremost, who is the talent you’re trying to acquire? In other words, who are your ideal candidates? Defining your ideal candidates is important because it will help you create job ads and content that attracts those you want in the company.
Take time to create an ideal candidate profile. This can be an overall persona or personas you’d like to have in your workplace. It might also be beneficial to create ideal candidate profiles for each role you’re recruiting for.
List demographic information, such as their age, location, and education level. Then, dig into more meaningful details, like their skillset, interests, and lifestyle. Detail what they would bring to your company too.
It’s also a good idea to determine what makes a good impression on these candidates. Where do they look for jobs? What job ads and content resonate best with them? How do they want to be approached? Answering these questions will help you with the next step.
Revisit Where and How You’re Recruiting
To hire and retain top talent, you first need to attract them. To do so, you need an approach to recruiting that they’ll resonate with. You also need to figure out where your ideal candidates are looking for jobs.
Use the ideal candidate profiles you created above to point you in the direction of where to find your hopefuls. A bit more research on this through Google and social media will be helpful.
As far as how you’re recruiting, think about how you can better reach prospects and develop a solid screening process. For example, you may need to start targeting passive candidates in addition to active candidates. Maybe you need a more personalized approach when speaking to great matches.
Or, maybe you need to improve how you’re identifying potential matches. Instead of relying on manual processes to sift through applications, you could implement AI-powered application software or other technology that will take over these tasks for you to increase speed and efficiency. Write down what you think could benefit from an alternative tool or practice and what it would look like to make these changes.
Create an Employee Experience Worth Staying For
If you really want your ideal candidates to be attracted to your company, choose to work for it, and stay long-term, a great job listing and promoting it on the right platforms isn’t enough.
You need something more meaningful that inspires them to make you their chosen employer. Establish a positive reputation in the workforce by creating a culture that employees can’t find anywhere else — and that starts from the moment your candidate is recruited. This could look like:
- Offering company-provided tools;
- Personalizing recruiting content to fit the candidate;
- Crafting development plans for every employee;
- Offering flexible scheduling options and other wellness perks;
- Having a diverse leadership team that genuinely cares about employees;
- Building a cohesive team of employees with a range of skill sets and experiences
- Establishing a detailed onboarding process to ensure new hires are comfortable and capable;
- Ensuring your compensation and benefits package includes most of what your employees want and need.
The employee experience you create should be centered around your ideal candidates. Give them what they want, and they’ll be more likely to come to your company and stay there.
Having an ongoing strategy for recruiting, hiring, and onboarding top talent is one of the smartest business moves you can make. If you’re developing relationships as you should, filling open roles with great matches will be much more effortless.
