Three ways to stand out in a crowded job market

 

The UK currently boasts almost full employment. Without a doubt, that’s a great position for the country. But if you’re an employer, it presents problems that you need to overcome. With around 870,000 unfilled vacancies in January 2019, this number is higher than it’s been since the 1970s. Unemployment is at rock bottom and attracting talent has never been harder.

This means that if you’re in the market to attract new talent to your workforce, simply posting ads on a job board is not going to cut the mustard. You’re going to have to work a lot harder and it’s highly likely your HR department will need to sharpen their marketing skills.

If you’re aiming to recruit the right one, not just anyone, here are three things you must do to stand out from the crowd.

Strong Branding

To have achieved success in your business you’ve worked hard on your branding. You’ve developed a coherent approach that consistently delivers the messages your clients want to hear, and it makes you appear authentic. As a result, your target audience now knows you, likes you and trusts you.

Acquiring the top talent you need to continue to drive your business forward requires the same attention to detail. Employer branding is what sets you apart from your competitors and makes people want to work for you, not them.

Your Employer Brand is what attracts the personalities you’re looking for because they identify with what you stand for, your values align with theirs and they’re sold on the fact that you offer a great place to work. This is especially critical if you’re hoping to tempt people away from existing roles and take a chance on you.

An Employer Brand goes far beyond the colour of your uniform or the company values on your website. Prospective employees are looking for evidence that your brand runs through the core of your business.

How do you achieve that?

Define your proposition and shout about it

As you would with any good marketing campaign, you start with your value proposition.

Take some time to define your Employer Value Proposition (EVP). This is a short statement that summarises what your organisation offers to the people who work for you. The EVP is the start point of your recruitment strategy and underpins every aspect of the recruitment marketing you subsequently undertake.

When you’ve done this, you’ll have a deep understanding of the people you need to attract which will allow you to set about finding them. At this point speak to recruiters who understand your niche and draw on their experience.

Critical to your EVP is creating recruitment content that appeals to the people you’re looking for. There are many ways you can do this, and the best course of action will be driven by what you know about your people.

Some examples to think about are:

• Share stories about how your business has progressed employees’ careers;
• Use video to show what it’s like to work inside your organisation;
• Produce web content that tells the story of the people behind the brand.

Do things differently

You need to show why you’re different from other employers right from the start.

Reach out to the people you want to attract, in the places they hang out – don’t sit back and hope they find you. This might mean sharing recruitment messages through Facebook, inviting them to express interest in your vacancy via Twitter, share a video on YouTube, entice them to you with amazing images on Instagram, or lure them in through LinkedIn.

Whatever you do, please don’t just stick an advert on a job board and hope your targets find you. They won’t.

How The Talent Hub can help

Recruitment marketing needs a specific skill set. If you don’t have those skills in-house, The Talent Hub can help. Our recruitment experts can help you define your Employer Value Proposition, create recruitment content that will capture the attention of your ideal audience and support you to make sure you’re sending the right messages to the right target candidates in the right places at the right time.

Contact The Talent Hub on 0800 634 4477 for more information.

 

 

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