How the hunter becomes the hunted

We all know that finding and retaining 'top talent' is crucial to any and every organisation. With top talent turning the wheels, businesses are more likely to experience increased productivity, start yielding better financial return, and be more attractive to investors. The higher the quality of people you have in your office, the more productivity and results you get out of that office. Not to mention the fact that top-choice candidates generally need less time training to reach productivity.

Automating your hiring process not only helps find and sort candidates, but also ensures new employees become productive more quickly. But, in what ways can we get these candidates we all seek to start targeting us? The answer is simple: by becoming a company the best candidates intentionally seek out.

The key is a strong employment brand. It’s the best way to ensure your company finds higher quality candidates, faster and at a lower cost. A crystal clear employment brand can give your organisation a competitive advantage in the marketplace and help you attract, hire and retain all-stars.

The candidate's perception of your company’s employee value proposition (EVP) has a direct impact on:

If candidates perceive your company as being an ideal employer, more and more resumes will start coming in—and you can begin pulling the top candidates out of that elite group. This is a 'rich get richer' kind of dynamic.

To build your EVP you need to ensure that from the first interaction with a potential candidate—throughout the entire hiring process—to well past the onboarding process, you demonstrate your employment brand and culture to employees. Having a clear brand and conveying it to candidates tells potential employees what it is like to work with your company, and what is expected of them.

A great place to start in building your EVP is a comprehensive and branded career site where candidates can ask questions about open positions and learn about your work environment. Make sure the site is easy to navigate. A great career site provides you an opportunity to spread your employment brand. Make sure you have option for jobseekers to 'share' jobs with friends via email and social media to make your openings more social.

Provide current and potential employees a way to share with others why you are a great company to work for and current job openings the exist. Go social—mobilise your workforce to be your greatest brand ambassadors and share the great things about your organisation.

It is imperative that HR stops fearing social media. It’s going to continue to rule moving forward. If you’ve feared it in the past, it is time to learn to embrace it. Of course, you’ll want to have policies in place so your employees understand the company guidelines on what is and is not appropriate to share socially; you don’t want to accidentally share confidential information.

Having a social strategy allows for casting a wider net and reaching a greater number of passive candidates. As a bonus, social recruiting decreases the cost of recruiting and staffing. And that’s something every company can get behind.

Flock to LinkedIn, blogs and other social sites because that is where you are going to find candidates. Companies without a social media recruitment strategy will be left behind and miss out on an entire generation of socially-savvy employees.

Creating a strong EVP is not easy, but all the tools you need are available today.

Taking control of your employment brand, and providing candidates with a great end-to-end recruiting experience will reap its rewards­—high quality candidates will seek out your company and soon you will no longer be the hunter, but the hunted.