Your employees can make or break the success of your business, which is why it’s crucial to find the right people with the right strengths to contribute to the workplace. But over the past few months, the American labor market has slowed, despite unemployment rates staying low. On average, such conditions see employers add 330,000 positions monthly, resulting in more job opportunities than employees.
When this happens, it can be difficult for companies to seek suitable candidates with the right mix of soft and hard skills, attitude, and drive to contribute to their progress. As such, it’s crucial to strengthen your hiring efforts and attract the right people. Here are some ways you can begin.
Emphasize your company’s values and culture
Nowadays, a company’s values and workplace culture hold greater weight for job seekers. In fact, over 77% of employees said they weigh up workplace culture before seeking work opportunities there. 56% said workplace culture was more crucial to job satisfaction than salary, and 73% said they would only apply to companies whose personal values aligned with theirs. So, for your company to attract the best candidates, it’s crucial to talk about your company ethos in your social media, websites, job postings, and even throughout the application process itself. Advertise it in spaces that your candidates can see when they research your company. This gives you a competitive advantage to attract skilled employees looking for the best workplace environments to grow in.
Offer the right incentives
Another great way to entice suitable candidates is by offering the right incentives. Doing so can encourage better performance by allowing employees to focus on their well-being. More importantly, it helps you stand out even further from your competition in a slow job market by ensuring applicants that you value their overall health. Remember, your incentive package should be customized based on what your employees can benefit from, so it’s good to get their input through company-wide surveys or one-on-one conversations. For instance, research finds that offering a hybrid work schedule is an effective recruiting tool, as it allows employees to have better mental wellness, save time on commute, and develop trust with their employers. Likewise, you should look for benefits your candidates would find helpful today. For instance, you can offer health insurance, professional development opportunities, health and fitness resources, and mental health support—all highly sought after by today’s professionals.
Seek professional recruitment solutions
In a slow job market, it’s crucial to seize every opportunity to upgrade your recruitment methods. This helps you scale up your pool of applicants and heighten efficiency in finding the best possible candidates for the job, all when high-quality prospects are scarce. For this, you can look into professional recruitment solutions whose specialized consultants match you with the right talent and skills anywhere globally. They are crucial to helping you find qualified and diverse candidates, navigate talent and skills shortages, and minimize time-to-hire recruitment costs. That way, you can be assured that your recruitment efforts remain strong and aggressive, even in a slow job market.
Improve your onboarding strategy
To be truly comprehensive, a recruitment strategy should look beyond the application process. That’s why onboarding software like a digital induction program is crucial to attracting and retaining top talent. Your program can involve online portals, virtual tours, and interactive videos that orient workers to your culture, policies, and procedures in a highly interactive way. This makes the first few weeks or months of onboarding structured, allowing new hires to feel that you value their time and are invested in their success. Moreover, it helps them align themselves with your goals, resulting in greater job satisfaction and commitment. By eliminating a lot of the discomfort and uncertainty in the onboarding process, you can reassure applicants at the hiring stage that they will be well-cared for. More importantly, you can avoid losing new hires early on, which can be especially crucial in a slow job market.
Recruiting the right people is crucial to your company’s success. When faced with a slow job market, strengthening your hiring efforts helps you reach the best employees effectively.
