Only an ostrich is unaware of today’s recruiting challenges. Never mind the pandemic, our national and local economy is red-hot, and short-term forecasts are very positive. In my conversations with clients and business partners, the shortage of good talent may only be eclipsed by recent supply chain challenges. I’ve compiled a list of their creative ideas for sourcing good talent:
– Targeted approaches by a strong HR leader can be useful on LinkedIn.
– Social media is useful; ask your employees for platform suggestions. Challenge your employees to share social media postings to expand your reach.
– Recruiters with strong local networks continue to be valuable for key roles; and even stronger with a focus on specialized areas like finance or engineering.
– Networking is always a strong source of potential candidates.
– Consider spot billboard placements.
– Indeed.com and similar boards are saturated and recruiters are overburdened with unqualified resumes. An alternative should be indianacareerconnect.com.
– Consider veterans job boards: invets.org, recruitmilitary.com, and veteranjoblistings.com.
– Don’t overlook job postings on your company website.
– Depending on your industry, consider niche printed weeklies (Farmers Exchange) for job ads.
– Hand out HR recruiter business cards, on weekends, at retail businesses.
– Seek out former employees that left voluntarily, and gauge their interest in returning, or recommending a friend or colleague.
– Leverage relationships with university career placement teams and alumni associations.
– Consider onsite job fairs, and/or high school senior “tour day” for vocational students.
– Keep and review past resumes for potential candidates.
– Don’t overlook options to promote from within.
– Communicate with potential candidates using preferable means based on their needs (phone, video, text, email, etc.).
– Long gone are the days of placing a help wanted ad! These tips and strategies should increase the size of your candidate funnel. However, attracting and hiring candidates requires strength in your employment brand, which encompasses many facets. Read our later blog post for tips and strategies to positively transform your organization.
For more information, email Chuck or call 574-361-6166.