What Employers Need To Do To Attract The Right Candidates

Posted by • August 20th, 2010 • 1,304 Comments

Sure, the job market is making candidates work harder to land an interview or their ideal job. But shouldn’t employers be working just as hard to find their ideal candidates?

Although employers may receive hundreds of applications per opening, it doesn’t mean they’re getting ones from the right people.

Here are some things employers need to do in order to attract that “right fit” for their openings:

Offer detailed descriptions of job openings. It’s hard for a candidate to know if they’re qualified for your job when you only give out a few details. Many job postings don’t even list the company or hiring manager’s name – making it difficult to get in contact with you should they have any questions or if they would like to follow-up.

Don’t rely solely on job boards. Just like candidates, employers should be utilizing different tactics to find their ideal employees. This means you shouldn’t just post your opening on a job board and hope the right person sees it. You should be utilizing social media, Glassdoor and networking as part of your arsenal of tools when filling an opening. You should also seek out the ideal candidate – either through social networking sites or more traditional ways.

Be courteous. This should go without saying, but you need to follow up with candidates and keep them in the loop. You would expect the same from a potential employee, right? Candidates will respect you much more if you take the time to send a polite “no thank you” e-mail as opposed to ignoring them.

Let candidates know why they should want to work for you. Don’t just post a dull job ad – include what makes your organization amazing to work for! Is it the culture? the employees? The career opportunities? Make it obvious so that top talent will be attracted to your ad.

It’s important to find the “right fit” candidate from the beginning so you’re not wasting resources soon thereafter finding another employee to take their spot.

What other ways would you add?

Heather R. Huhman is a Glassdoor career and workplace expert, experienced hiring manager, and founder & president of Come Recommended, a content marketing and digital PR consultancy for job search and human resources technologies. She is also the instructor of Find Me A Job: How To Score A Job Before Your Friends, author of Lies, Damned Lies & Internships (2011) and #ENTRYLEVELtweet: Taking Your Career from Classroom to Cubicle (2010), and writes career and recruiting advice for numerous outlets.

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  • http://www.belladomain.com SandyJK

    Great list Heather. I will definitely Tweet this and share it on my Facebook page for my book, “I'm at a Networking Event–Now What???” A few things I'd add:

    If you receive a candidate from an employee referral, absolutely, positively acknowledge the candidate's submission and final outcome with both parties, especially if it's a “no.” The last thing employers need is for their employees to stop bringing in good candidates because their referrals never seem to get hired or even informed that they didn't make the cut. What's the point of having an employee referral program then??

    Be careful whom you blow off and how you do so….you never know where some of these people are going to end up and on what side of the desk you may be sitting in the next 3 to 5 to 10 years. The world keeps getting smaller and smaller and connections get closer and closer in degrees of separation.

    And, as you noted Heather, courtesy does matter and bad word-of-mouth for the company as well as the folks involved in the hiring process spreads like wildfire today. I heeded at least 2 of the warnings I received about companies in Seattle that treat candidates very poorly throughout the interviewing process and have definitely felt obligated to share that intel with others.