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How to Attract Hundreds of Qualified Applicants

If you are similar to most of the hiring managers who we surveyed in 2007, you no doubt have a significant problem attracting qualified applicants. No matter what you do, the number of applicants applying to your postings seems to be decreasing, the resumes seem to be less and less impressive, and the looming talent shortage is becoming more of a concern every day.

It may surprise you then, that even in the current economy some organizations continue to be bombarded by applications on a regular basis and to greatly exceed their recruitment goals. For example, the environmental consulting company, Jacques Whitford, has little problem attracting potential employees - they received over 11,000 applications last year for various positions across Canada!

KEY CONCEPTS

A New Way to Look at Recruitment

Why do firms like Jacques Whitford attract so much attention? For one, they treat recruitment like a marketing activity. They clearly understand that marketing yourself as an employer is no different than effectively presenting a product to a customer - both require you to understand and anticipate the needs of a target market, and cater to those needs in order to attract people’s attention and motivate them to “buy”.

For example, it is surely no coincidence that this company was profiled as one of the best employers in Canada, has a website that is very enticing to the right type of employee, and has found many other successful ways of communicating the benefits of applying and becoming a successful member of their team. Simply put, people feel good about the company, want to be a part of their brand, and even spread the word to their friends about why it is so wonderful to work there. This is marketing at its best.

What is very surprising is that for all of the effort that companies put into marketing products and attracting customers, many of them do not devote this level of attention to appealing to people who are just as important to success - high-performing employees. For example, what do most companies do to entice potential applicants? They write and post a standard job description, which is often not much more than a bland list of tasks and required qualifications, with no means of appealing to high-performers and motivating them to apply.

Of course marketing is not just about brochures or job descriptions, but about all of the actions that your company can make to develop attractive qualities. In the case of recruitment, it is the brand that you develop to entice those high-performing candidates to apply to posted positions and to recognize your company as the ideal employer.

The Top Employer Advantage

Some companies have already realized the advantage of this shift in thinking and are reaping the significant benefits of marketing themselves and available positions as they would a product or service. As a case in point, the members of the various “Top Employers” lists typically see a substantial increase in their perceived value as an employer after being profiled, and subsequently a huge increase in the number of candidates who apply to their postings.

Even though they come from entirely different industries, the Top 10 [Best Employers in Canada] have a few things in common: Their turnover rates are exceptionally small, and they are recruiting rapidly as their businesses expand. They hired a combined 3,145 people in the past year, according to Mediacorp.

- Financial Post, 2007

In fact, having this reputation and appeal is critical to attracting the best people in a particular field - those who realize their worth and are looking for more than just a paycheck. These are the people who are most interested in finding a good fit between themselves and their employer, and for whom work is not just an obligation but a way in which they can contribute, achieve, and where their talents will be most appreciated. They are also the people who understand that the current economy has provided them more liquidity, in terms of being able to easily switch to employers who provide them with the most enticing “product”.

SOLUTION

So, how do you most effectively market yourself as an employer?

Understand Your Target Market

To successfully showcase your product (in this case, the product being your company as an employer), you must first understand the buying habits of your target market - high-performing employees. This includes knowing where they most often reside and why they ultimately decide to take one job over another.

Often the best sources for this information are the current employees who were once your “customers”, in the sense that they were at one time compelled to apply to your company and to a specific job opening. Conducting interviews and surveys, particularly with those who are most successful, will give you considerable insights into how best to position yourself as an employer. Some of the questions to ask include:

• How did you find your current job?
• Where are some of the best places to market job openings for this position?
• Where do the best people in this role gather? (e.g., trade shows, associations, websites, etc.)
• What publications do they read?
• What made this position more appealing than others that you were considering?
• How could we have better enticed you to apply?
• Why do you enjoy working here? (e.g., organizational culture, company size, coworkers, manager, benefits, training, opportunities, challenge, etc.)

You can gather very insightful information by surveying all employees and exploring the different answers provided by top performers versus their less capable counterparts. For example, you may find that your best people were attracted to your excellent training programs, while less capable employees were more interested in compensation. This information will help guide the marketing efforts explained in the next two sections.

Set the Goal of Becoming a Top Employer

Next, you need to develop ways to establish your brand as a company who offers considerable advantages to highly successful employees. These can include general benefits that would appeal to a wide range of employees and more specific offerings that are more tailored to the individual.

The questions that you asked in the employee survey will help uncover some of the more specific benefits that you will want to market to potential candidates and around which you should establish a brand. For example, while many people are attracted by flexible working hours, high-performing web designers at your company may be specifically attracted by the chance to work with the latest technology. In that case, you should market the fact that your company “provides opportunities to work with the latest design technology so that employees can reach their creative potential.”

In fact, you should even go so far as to set the goal of being profiled on a prominent “Top Employers” list. The work that you do to make the list will certainly improve your employer appeal and the publicity alone will help increase the number of people who apply to your job openings (hopefully, you have a well-developed screening process; if not, we will discuss that in an upcoming article).

The attached table provides the factors that are considered for one of the most popular top employers list, and gives examples of related activities from the most recent companies profiled.

Develop Better “Brochures”

Of course, as with product marketing, understanding your customers and developing marketing strategy will only take you so far. The final piece of the puzzle includes developing the marketing materials that will communicate your employer brand and provide applicants with the means to apply.

Your primary weapon in this regard is the job description or advertisement that many companies design so poorly. You, however, can stand apart from the crowd by:

• Describing the benefits that were uncovered in your employee survey. In other words, explaining to candidates why they would want to apply for the role.
• Discussing job objectives, as opposed to listing tasks. Which of the following would you find most appealing in a job ad - “conducting performance reviews” (task), or “helping your people exceed expectations and reach their true potential through your expert advice and support” (objective)?
• Resisting the urge to include required qualifications, unless they are critical to the role. For example, stating that candidates require five years of experience will disqualify high-potential people with four or less. Be prepared to hire on talent, intelligence, and motivation - then provide training to make up for a lack of education or experience.
• Including an enticing case study so that candidates can envision what it would be like to work at your company. This could be in the form of an interview with an enthusiastic employee or a short “day in the life” of a high-performer.

You will also want to consider reworking the career section of your website, so that visiting candidates are further excited by the thought of working with your company. The career section of HSBC’s website is a great example of how to appeal to a variety of potential candidates.

Microsoft goes one step further by providing profiles of real employees and their positive experience of working there - this is a company that understands that a website is the perfect soapbox for employee evangelists who will spread the word about why the company is such a great employer. Doing so also acts on the “psychology of trust” by providing applicants with first hand company information from people they feel are similar to themselves.

Finally, although unconventional (read: something you can do that many employers don’t), consider developing press releases and providing interviews that speak to the work environment and benefits of being an employee at your company. High-performers will be interested in, and remember, articles that describe your unique approach to managing people or the exciting projects that your best people are involved in. You goal should be to get potential employees thinking about how wonderful it would be to work for you.

If you are having trouble developing these materials, consider asking internal or third-party marketing experts to review your work and provide comments and suggestions on how to improve them.

Find the Right Place to Market the Opportunity

The final step is identifying the best places to market your company and the open position. Again, the input from current employees will help generate a list of potential sources for future candidates. Also consider the following:

• Social networking sites
  (Wikipedia has an excellent list at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_social_networking_websites).
• Role-specific associations.
• Industry publications.
• Websites and blogs frequented by top people in the field.

Clearly, it does not have to be difficult to gather a large number of qualified job candidates. It is simply a matter of understanding what attracts people to your company and finding the best ways to market this advantage to potential applicants.