Innovative Ways to Attract New Talent

By Alyssa Laffitte on March 24, 2018

When you are a company that’s seeking to recruit new talent, it can be difficult to find the specific type of employees you are looking for. New technology has completely changed the recruitment process for any job, but much more so for recruitment of new talent.

To attract new talent, you will have to use new strategies such as good benefits, social media, and improving your work environment. And of course, you will have to think about the type of employee your company wants to recruit, and tailor everything to that specific type of applicant. When you use these strategies, you can easily attract new talent. Let’s talk more about these strategies to attract new talent!

Image via Isorepublic.com

Tailor Your Advertisements to Your Target Type of Employee

Before you start recruiting new talent, take a moment to think about what kind of person you want to attract to your job opening. This person is your “target employee”. How old are they? What qualifications and previous skills should they have? What benefits would they need from an employer? Where do they spend their time? What social media platforms do they like to use?

Once you have this information, you can use it and tailor your advertisements to the kind of talent you want to attract. For example, you can put an advertisement where your target talent will be. If they like to hang out at the local community college performing arts center, then put a flyer and have a recruiter there! You can tailor your benefits to what they would need (more on that later!). You can even post advertisements about your job opening on their preferred social media networks (more on that later, too).

All in all, if you decide on your target audience ahead of time, you can tailor your advertisements and efforts in recruiting that specific type of talent. This will make it more likely that the talent you are looking for will find your company.

Advertise Good Benefits

Expanding off the previous point, if your company needs to recruit new talent, you will need to think about the type of talent you want to recruit and what kind of benefits would appeal to them. If you advertise the benefits that correspond to the type of talent you want, you will be more likely to attract the talent you want.

For example, if your company is seeking to recruit a younger employee, you can offer them a scholarship for their university. If you advertise this benefit, young talent will be more attracted to your company and will likely apply to work for you. A tuition scholarship might not appeal to older adults, but will appeal to younger adults. On the other hand, if your company is seeking to hire someone older, you can offer benefits like health insurance plans and free childcare. This benefit might not appeal to university students, but will appeal to older talent, and will make older adults more likely to apply. Advertising benefits tailored to your target applicant will attract your target audience.

If you want to recruit a certain type of talent, consider tailoring the benefits to your target talent. Tailoring the benefits to the talent you want to recruit will make your company more attractive to them, and thus, will make them more likely to apply to work for your company.

Infographic by Alyssa Laffitte

Provide Your Talent with Opportunities to Grow

Especially for younger employees, it is important to provide them with opportunities to grow as an employee and as a young professional. In general, millennials are known to “job hop” (move from one job to another job in a short amount of time), most likely because they want to advance in their career but their current position or company does not allow them opportunities to grow as professionals.

As a result, they need to move to another job that gives them more room to grow than the previous one did. Don’t let your company make this mistake! If you advertise that your company will allow room for a young talent to grow, they will be more attracted to your company.

Going back to the first point, consider the type of growth your target employee would want to achieve. Would your target talent eventually want to gain a managerial position? Would they want connections with people? Consider these things and be prepared to provide them for your new talent, as this will make your company more attractive to them.

For example, advertise the fact that if a young employee works for your company, your company will allow them to eventually start taking on more of a leadership role within the company. This will make your company stand out among others, and will make young employee wants to work for your company instead of for someone else.

Giving your employees (whether young or older) opportunities to grow is a great tactic to keep your employees, too. Providing opportunities to grow will encourage talent to stay with your company once they are already hired. If their job already provides them with bigger opportunities, why would they need to seek out another job? Give your employees what they need and they won’t need to leave.

In other words, think about what your ideal talent would need to grow in their career. Be able to provide this for them, and make sure the job listing clearly states that you can provide this for them. This strategy will attract new talent to your company, as not everyone has great opportunities for an employee to grow.

Have an Active Presence on LinkedIn

In today’s digital world, professionals use digital tools to find jobs. One of the most popular websites professionals use to find jobs is LinkedIn. LinkedIn is unique because it’s also like a social media platform, where you can “connect” with other professionals and mark your “interest” in a company or a school.

Because of the way it’s set up, LinkedIn is an easy place for professionals and for job recruiters to connect with each other. So if your company has a LinkedIn profile set up, it will be easier for potential employees to find and connect with your company. It will also make it easier for your company to sift through applicants, because LinkedIn will allow you to see your applicants’ qualifications.

Also, be sure to post often so people know that your company’s profile is active.

In summary, it is good for your company to have an active profile on LinkedIn. This profile will make it easier for potential employees to connect with your company, and your company can easily search up each of your applicants and look up their qualifications. If you want to be especially adventurous, your company can even be active on other popular social media platforms, which leads me to my next point…

Additionally, Have an Active Presence on Social Media in General

To add on to the previous point, your company should take advantage of each one of today’s popular social media platforms in general. Make sure your company has an active social media presence on popular websites like Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and even Snapchat. Your company can post job opportunities on all those platforms in addition to LinkedIn, as this will make your job opening more visible to your target applicants, because it is very likely that they are on social media. And of course, don’t only post it once on one platform, because it’s easy for people to miss a single post. Post often on every one of the platforms! This will help spread the word about your job opening and about your company.

Another perk of having an active presence on social media is that it will bring more exposure not only to your job opening, but to your company in general. Anyone will be able to find out about your company and become a potential customer. Plus, if they “share” your page or “like” your photos, you will be able to reach their friends, too.

Clearly, having an active presence on many social media platforms is advantageous in many ways. You will not only be able to reach potential talent by posting about your job opening, but you will also be able to reach the general public, and friends of their friends, which are potential customers! Social media will allow your company’s audience to grow quickly in a short amount of time. For those reasons, it is a good idea for your company to have a Twitter profile, a LinkedIn page, a Facebook fan page, and an Instagram business page.

Image via Isorepublic.com

Have A Wonderful Work Environment… And Highlight It!

If you want to recruit anyone, you should cultivate a good work environment, and highlight this wonderful environment when you are advertising your job opening. Create a workplace environment where your employees are happy. Provide them with a good work-life balance. Listen to their feedback and implement their suggestions. As I mentioned previously, give them opportunities to grow. Teach managers and superiors in your company to be kind and compassionate toward the employees working under them. All these things will increase your company’s chances of being a “Best Place to Work” (more on that in the next point).

When your company fosters a good, positive, and supportive work environment, you can advertise that when you post about your job opportunities. This will attract more potential employees to your company.

In other words, when you are trying to recruit new employees, try to create a work environment where your employees are happy. When your employees are satisfied with their jobs, you can advertise that when you post about your company’s job openings, and this will attract new talent to your open position.

Become a “Best Place to Work”

When talented new employees look for places to work, they are likely looking at a place that has been ranked one of the “Best Places to Work.” Even smaller companies (specifically, companies with less than 1,000 employees) can win the “Best Small or Medium Company to Work For” award.

This title is awarded by Glassdoor, a job search site, to 100 different companies based on anonymous employee feedback on a company review survey about their position, their work environment, and the company in general. They are also asked about benefits, workplace values, work-life balance, and any other pros and cons to working at your company. If you want to become a “Best Place to Work”, your company will have to make sure the employees are satisfied with their work environment. This information provided in the survey is important to potential employees, because it is provided by people who are in the position they want to be in, and it will be a big factor when they decide where to apply for jobs.

If your employees are satisfied with their work environment, they are likely to leave positive feedback on Glassdoor’s survey, which gives you a better chance of winning the “Best Place to Work” award and becoming more visible to the talent you are trying to attract.

If your company is placed on Glassdoor’s “Best Place to Work” list, it will become more visible and attractive to the talented applicants you are trying to recruit, so make sure your employees are happy so that they can put in a good word for you in the anonymous company survey!

Nowadays, it can be a challenge for companies, especially smaller companies, to recruit new talent. With social media and new technology, you have to use a new strategy to attract the type of talent you want. For example, you need to advertise good benefits, have an active presence on social media, and improve your company’s work environment. In other words, make your company the ideal fit for the type of applicant you want to recruit, and make sure this fit comes through in all of your advertisements. Following these tips, it will be easy for your company to recruit the type of talent you want.

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