Dear Chuck Bower
Our newsletter tips and strategies are focused on the tight labor market. Where do you find rock stars? It's tough, and creative solutions are needed. Related with candidate sourcing strategies are important considerations for your employment brand.
We hope you find these articles useful. Past newsletters are found at www.hawthorneservices.com/resources/.
Sincerely,
Chuck Bower, 574-361-6166
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Where Are the Rock Stars? 
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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 below for tips and strategies to positively transform your organization.
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Polishing Your Employment Brand
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Your strong employment brand starts with culture. What adjectives and descriptors would your leadership team use to define your current culture? Or your aspirational culture? How strongly is it embraced by senior leadership?
Does your recruiting process have consistency, collect good information about candidates, and does your interview process appear professional and well organized? In what ways does a candidate's first view of your company appear positive or negative?
How positively or negatively would your current team members rate your organization? Have you surveyed them lately? (Think Net Promoter Survey for loyalty, not satisfaction)
How strong is your onboarding and orientation process? What career tracks or programs have you created for promotion and succession? What options, internal or external, are available for leadership and technical development?
How strongly are your core values and mission communicated to the wider world? In what ways does your organization value and support the community(s) that you operate within? Why do current employees say, "I'm proud to be part of this organization." Is your organization well known throughout the community?
Do you treat recruitment of employees as a marketing goal, similarly to recruiting customers?
Is it time to overhaul your benefits package or review compensation against the labor market? How strong are your manager's soft skills related to employee retention? What systems do you have in place to give constructive feedback on performance and outline career development?
If the answer to any of these questions is "No" or unclear, you have work to do! Positive and clearly defined answers will assist any organization's efforts to strengthen their employment brand.
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