Top 10 tips for attracting your ideal candidates in 2023

There’s a lot going on for SMEs. The recession, cost of living crisis, and swamped job market mean that smaller companies cannot take anything for granted this year. With the high volume of vacancies and job seekers expecting more from prospective employers, recruitment strategies need to raise the bar if vacancies are going to be filled and filled with the right candidates.

Here are our top 10 tips to help you shine a light on your company and reach the best candidates by getting the most out of the recruitment process.

1. Review your company profile

There are still more job vacancies than candidates, so your business is going to have to stand out if you want to draw in applicants. Treat it like a marketing exercise for attracting new clients:

• Make sure your website is up to date
• Keep your social media content fresh and relevant
• Promote customer and employee testimonials

Then, when potential applicants check out your company’s public profile, it will be strong, transparent and reflect your company values.

2. Values-based recruitment

While it’s important that new recruits have the skills and experience needed to excel at their post, these ticks on paper do not give you any insight into how a candidate will fit into the team, department or overall company culture. Be sure to ask questions in interviews that reveal a little more about an applicant’s values, outlook, passions and character. How do they match up with the company values and those of their potential co-workers? If these characteristics are not a good match for your business, working relationships, staff retention and job satisfaction will suffer.

3. Include your current employees

Why not involve a current employee in the recruitment process? They could provide valuable insights into the kind of skills and values they see as important in a potential co-worker, and could be a great ambassador for the company. You could also consider introducing each candidate to the team they’d be working in to see how they get on.

4. Be clear with your job spec

It is often mentioned in employment practice circles how women are put off applying for a job if they don’t meet 90–100% of the job spec requirements. While this statistic was generated from a passing comment and has no quantitative data as its basis (Behavioural Insights Team), it does raise an important question. How much emphasis do employers put on matching applicants’ skills and experience with the job spec?

We suspect a little too much. It’s important to remember the ideology behind values driven recruitment. Candidates are more than a list of skills on paper. Consider using language in job advertisements and specifications that make it clear to candidates that equivalent skills and experiences might be accepted. You’ll likely draw more attention, gain more applicants and have more chance of finding that ideal candidate.

(For more information on the statistical data behind the differences in men and women’s tendencies when applying for jobs, see GradTouch.)

5. Be clear on salary

There may be perceived disadvantages to advertising the salary band in job listings, including the risk of causing resentment among current staff and showing all your cards to competitors, which results in many companies leaving out the salary from their job ad. This is not the best way to attract your ideal candidate. Imagine, if you are already in a role but considering moving for whatever reason, which ads are going to stand out to you and make you read more. The ones with a salary in line with your expectation or the one with salary TBC?  Being transparent about what you are offering, even if it’s a scale will help by

• Attracting the best and most diverse talent
• Showing potential employees that company compensation policies are clear and well defined
• Helping to combat gender pay inequality
• Builds trust.

6. Be open to negotiation

Advertising the salary band for a post doesn’t have to mean that pay is non-negotiable. Leaving pay, benefits and working arrangements open to negotiation will help you secure the right applicant.

7. Be inclusive

You risk missing out on landing the best candidate if your recruitment practices and documentation are not inclusive. Consider how the language and methods of your application process might encourage people with disabilities, different races, sexualities, neurodiversity, religions, social backgrounds etc to apply.

8. Be as flexible as possible

Wherever possible, be flexible in the working arrangements the company offers – place of work, shift patterns, start/end times – in order to attract and retain the best talent. Reasonably accommodating your workers’ needs leads to a happier, more satisfied, dedicated workforce.

9. Review your benefits package

If it’s a while since you reviewed your benefits package, now is a good time to do so. Applicants will no doubt ask about what benefits are on offer and attach more importance to them now than ever before. Just remember that it’s not often the high price-tag items that appeal the most. In the current economic climate, it’s more likely to be the ones that ease the cost of living (childcare vouchers, sick pay) and make daily life a little easier (flexi-time). Don’t let an out-of-date benefits package stop you from securing the right candidate.

10. Make sure your recruitment runs smoothly

The recruitment process can be time-consuming, costly and complicated, with so much to consider, plan for, put in place and get right for it to be a success. Make sure you have planned out in advance what the process looks like including timings so that you can manage candidate’s expectations. If you want help in putting together a hiring strategy and the accompanying paperwork (job spec, advertisement etc) or would prefer for someone else to run your interviews, find a reliable recruitment agency to ease you through the process.

For all your recruitment needs, call our friendly team of experts at Key Appointments on 0844 504 4666 or drop us a line at info@key-appointments.co.uk.