How to Find Top Talents for Hard-To-Fill Positions
Are you struggling with finding the right person for various jobs in your company? Perhaps you posted on every possible job board and still end up sifting through resumes of unqualified candidates. This is among the frustrating challenges companies with open hard-to-fill positions are facing. Such roadblocks are the job requires a specialized skill set and experience, or it’s new and in high demand.
In 2018, 41 percent of Canadian employers reported difficulty filling certain positions. And the recent COVID-19 pandemic brought an additional squeeze to the situation, leaving many employers with vacant jobs to fill.
Regardless of the indicators of a position being hard to fill, they all require a fresh approach and updated recruitment strategies. The Harvard Business Review warns against solely depending on the labour market norms of the past. Read our tips on finding top talents for positions that are hard to fill.
Build a Strong Employer Brand
A strong employer brand plays a crucial role in attracting top talents for hard-to-fill positions. Candidates now look for companies that match their lifestyles, values, and interests beyond the paycheck and benefits. You can show prospective candidates what it’s like working at your company.
Social media is an effective tool to highlight your company’s culture. Although culture fit is critical, compensation remains essential. You can also use your benefits package to build your employer brand online. This can help draw a wider audience to your recruitment efforts.
Reassess Your Job Postings
The way you present a job to candidates also matters. You can unintentionally ward off qualified talents due to poorly written job postings. So, instead of writing postings that describe vague personas, try to be more specific.
However, listing standard information, like the job’s location, salary, requirements, and responsibilities, isn’t enough. When writing your postings, emphasize what your company wants from the candidates besides what they will get if they’re hired.
Leverage Employee Referrals
Your current employees can help you connect with the right potential candidates. They may have networks of people with similar interests. And since they’re fully aware of your company’s culture, they can refer someone they know will fit and thrive in the position.
Employee referrals continue to be the top reliable source of hires in organizations. Thus, consider investing in an incentive program for quality referrals from your employees. This can significantly reduce the time needed to fill open positions.
Hire an Executive Search Firm
Because of their vital role in a company’s growth, executive positions are one of the most complex and time-consuming to hire. Having an executive search firm in your business can help fill open positions in your organisational leadership more efficiently and affordably than doing it yourself. Fifty-nine percent of companies report difficulty recruiting and filling jobs in Canada, and senior-level roles are the hardest to fill.
Executive search firms, along with their extensive resources and expertise, make doing an executive search in Toronto or anywhere in Canada becomes easier.
Additionally, the recruitment process can be facilitated by working with a recruiting firm is sometimes a necessity. By using a headhunting agency, startups can save time by leveraging their deep understanding of both the job market and employers/candidates to ensure that only the most qualified candidates are selected for open positions.Â
Recruiter agencies like RecWorks, Honeypot, or startups recruiting by Funded.club have access to advanced data insights into the latest hiring trends and market conditions in various fields, which can be an incredibly valuable asset in future recruiting efforts.
This is especially true when hiring for specific roles, like a software sales manager for instance, where specialized software sales recruiters will be able to quickly and effectively find talent without skipping a beat.
Working with a good recruitment company is definitely an investment that startups will not regret!
Be Flexible and Persistent
There’s no shortcut in filling the hard-to-fill positions in your company. Even with the help of executive search firms, you have to put in some amount of effort, time, and money. Being flexible and persistent remains the top key in overcoming this recruitment challenge.
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