Hit refresh on your Recruitment Strategy

This year Ireland is expected to hit full employment with a record 2.3million people in work. While this is great news for the Irish economy, it’s not great news for your recruitment strategy. It means the search for top talent just got harder, and the tried and tested recruitment strategies are no longer a certainty for success. In a thriving economy, hiring inevitably becomes more about the candidates. Professionals can be more selective about their prospective employers which means businesses need to think smarter about how they attract new talent, and equally, how they intend to retain existing talent. Although money is a factor in the search for a new job, many candidates look beyond money and will often sacrifice a pay increase to work for a company that has a good reputation, whose company culture, leadership approach, and values resonate with what matters to them.

Employer branding

Your employer brand will come under scrutiny. This describes your reputation as a place to work and your employees value proposition. Platforms like LinkedIn and Facebook and Glassdoor are places where people share their experience of what it is like working for various named companies. These platforms can be a valuable source of feedback for your company and will highlight any critical points you need to address in your employer branding.

Incentives

While Google-esque incentives like foosball tables, bean bags and Friday beers may indicate a more relaxed corporate culture which may have initially lured top talent, this approach is now somewhat standard and is no longer a sufficient differentiator. While the idea of Foosball may be dated and not for everyone, the concept at the heart of the idea remains valid. What incentives do you offer employees that resonate with what they are looking for? At FMI  amongst some of our incentives is training that rewards our employees with DIT accreditation leading up to Degree level, thus making education, a prized commodity, available to all. The incentives should be reflective of the culture of your organisation.

Culture at the core

The culture of a company is an elusive, intangible yet critical component of what distinguishes good companies from great companies. It is defined by the values you hold as a business and the mission, goals and expectations that you as a business have.

For the Future

The speed and efficiency of how the business operates is reflected in its recruitment process. With the best talent being snapped up within 10 days of going on the market, businesses need to ensure that the process of applying to their firm is easy and seamless. This can be a strong indicator to candidates that the business is decisive and not caught up in a quagmire of red tape.  A business that is decisive exudes confidence.  Employees want to be part of a business that is clear about its objectives and where it intends to be.

As you create your recruitment strategy for this year start with the end in mind; your ideal candidate and what you think really matters to them. Then reverse engineer your strategy to ensure that at each touch point you reflect that. You may just be pleasantly surprised.

To find out more about how we can help you perfect your recruitment strategy, email justin.henshaw@fmi.ie for more information. We look forward to hearing from you. #PeoplePower