What Can You Be Doing to Attract Higher Quality Candidates?

What can you do if you’re not getting candidates who are highly qualified for the positions you need? With unemployment continuing to reach historic lows, it can be tough to find the right people for the right jobs, so you face stiff competitive for high-level candidates.

If you’re struggling to find qualified applicants in Reno and across northern Nevada, The Applied Companies’ staffing team can help you build a comprehensive solution. What strategic steps can you take to attract higher quality candidates to your job openings?

1. Write Targeted Job Descriptions

Hiring high-quality employees starts with giving them the right information. First, the job descriptions need to attract the right candidates. To do that, they must have a clear sense of the job requirements and the capabilities and skills needed to excel. If your job descriptions are vague and unexciting, you may be inadvertently pushing away top candidates or attracting candidates who can’t do the job you need.

An excellent job description will give a vivid sense of day-to-day work within the company, helping to get the attention of the people who will make a great fit in that culture. Give candidates a great sense of the job and the organization they will be joining, and you’ll be on your way to having the right candidates applying.

2. Provide Competitive Pay and Benefits

Among the very first thing candidates will be looking for from a new position: competitive pay and benefits. If you don’t offer salaries that at least match what similar companies in the area pay, you’re highly unlikely to attract top performers, especially with the current hot job market. If you aren’t aware of what competitors’ pay scales are, a staffing firm can help provide that information.

Benefits such as paid time off, health insurance and family leave are incredibly important to employees. You need to at least match what competing firms pay.

3. Increase the Distribution of Your Job Postings

What do you do if your job descriptions are clear and your salary and benefits are competitive, but high-quality candidates still aren’t appearing? Perhaps your jobs aren’t listed where your ideal candidates are looking. You need to increase the reach and distribution of your job postings.

Whether it’s social media, a job board or somewhere in your local community, the more places you have your jobs advertised, the more likely it is your top candidates will find them.

4. Target Passive Candidates

Top-notch performers are often happily employed. If you’re looking to attract them, they simply may not be looking. As a result, you need to recruit passive candidates – those who aren’t job-seeking, but content where they are.

Actively monitoring social media sites like LinkedIn for people with the skills and experience you’re looking for is one way to drive direct conversations with passive candidates. If you can offer a better position than the one they’re currently in, you may be able to land a best-fit candidate for your open position.

5. Work with a Staffing Company to Connect With Diverse Talent Pools

Staffing companies use a variety of strategies to attract high quality job candidates. They are great networks of talent pools in diverse niches and industries. They can search for passive candidates and tap into their networks to upgrade the candidates you’re seeing.

Working with a staffing team like The Applied Companies is a great way to find great candidates in northern Nevada! Contact us today to get started.