Blog Article

This is the first of two articles on finding qualified candidates for your open positions.

You’re the hiring manager at your company and you’ve got some positions to fill.  No sweat, especially in today’s economy, right?

Wrong.  Sure, you can fill the position with anyone, but you don’t want just anyone — you want the right person, boasting the right skills for the job.  It’s tougher than it seems.

And while the overall employment picture has brightened in recent years, workers have more options now than they did before; accessible technology, the need for flexible schedules, the portability of health care, plus the knowledge that an employer won’t necessarily be loyal to them if the economy sours again are factors that have combined to lead many workers to prefer being independent consultants rather than employees.

According to the Towers Watson Global Talent Management and Rewards Survey, a study of 1,637 companies globally, including 337 from the United States, hiring activity has increased for nearly half (48%).  But more than one-third (35%) indicated that turnover was rising, and problems attracting top performers (65%) and high-potential employees (64%) have increased from just two years ago.  And surprisingly, more than half reported difficulty retaining high-potential employees (56%) and top performers (54%)

Further, a companion study, the Towers Watson Global Workforce Study, a survey of 32,000 employees worldwide, including 6,014 from the United States, found key differences in what employers and employees look for in a job.  For employees, job security is the second most important reason they join a company and the fourth most important reason they stay; employers, however, did not rank those as key drivers of attraction and retention.  Not surprisingly, less than half of workers felt confident about their organizations’ ability to hire qualified employees or do a good job of retaining talented employees.

In addition, employers are seeing a higher demand than supply in key skills, meaning that top candidates have interviews with several clients, and are fielding multiple offers.  As a hiring manager, you’ve got to sell your company to a potential employee, not just offer them an available job.

According to CEB, there are four “high impact” steps you can take to ensure that you attract and keep top talent.  These include:

• Build a Differentiated Company Brand – synthesize the attributes employees value and define an employee brand that differentiates your organization from others in the marketplace.
• Articulate the Unique Employment Brand – articulate your company’s unique employment brand or employment value proposition (EVP) in the marketplace; make sure it’s not vague or incomplete due to a lack of understanding of employee and potential employee values.
• Create Engaging Job Descriptions – job descriptions are often dull or not very compelling. leaving candidates with an inaccurate impression of the role or company.
• Enable Employees to Embody the Brand – more and more companies are using existing employees in candidate interactions to represent the company’s employment brand and to ensure consistency in messages across all candidate interactions.

We all know it’s a different economy and job environment than it used to be for candidates, but now those differences are impacting the way employers find qualified employees.