Employees are an invaluable asset for businesses. Making sure that you hire top talent is crucial to your success. However, many companies aren’t investing as much time or money into the hiring process as they should be. This can have devastating consequences in some cases. But what strategies can business owners use to ensure they only attract the best employees?

In the modern age, there are even more platforms that can be used in the hiring process. This can make it difficult to know which one is the most suitable. Additionally, there are a number of mistakes businesses can make during the recruitment process. To help you understand how to successfully hire new employees, here are our top 5 advertising strategies for anyone looking to recruit.

Make sure your advert is clear

First and foremost, when you’re advertising a new role in your business, you need to make sure that you advertisement is not only appealing, but is also clear and easy to understand. It should contain all the key information. This includes the job title, location, salary, key responsibilities and required skills or qualifications.

The level of the job should be clearly displayed in the headline. As well as this information, the advert should also contain clear directions for how to move forward. Your applicants need to know how they can apply for the position, what to include in their application and the cut off date, and these all need to be included in your advert.

Choosing your advertising method

The method you choose to use when advertising your position will depend on the industry, the type of role, and who you are looking to attract. Some of the most popular methods of advertising include:

Local newspaper – If you’re looking to hire people locally, then choosing to use a local newspaper is one of the best options. Local papers usually have a classified section for jobs and reach people in the local area who are looking for work.

Outside your business – Another way to attract employees locally is by advertising outside the business itself. For example, you could use an outdoor banner, or set up a job fair or recruitment event. This can attract attention in the area and encourage more applications.

Online job sites – Online job sites are a great way of attracting some of the best talent around. Due to the large audience size on some sites, you can reach an impressive number of people very quickly. One of the only downsides with this is that you can receive too many applications. However, most platforms will allow you to filter the resumes you receive to help you narrow your search; for instance, you can filter by area, experience or qualifications. You can also try using a jobsite that’s designed for your specific industry.

Company website – Another option for advertising new jobs is by using your own website. One of the biggest advantages of using your company’s own website or blog to advertise new job opportunities, is that you will attract potential employees who already have an active interest in your business and are familiar with the industry.

Social media – A growing number of candidates, especially millennials, are using social media as their main tool for job hunting. The use of sites like LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook and others for professionals is growing rapidly. If you want to attract rising talent, you need to use these sites to connect with potential candidates. This can be done using your own existing network, or by using advanced search tools. LinkedIn in particular is very good for networking. The site has around 467 million users worldwide and allows you to see the candidates work experience, qualifications and any shared connections before you contact them.

Recruitment agencies – Although some companies can be put off by the idea of having to pay commission, for businesses with limited resources, using recruitment agencies can be a smart move. Agencies have specialist skills in searching for candidates, screening resumes and have an effective process. This means that they could help you to find new talent faster than some other methods, which could stop you from missing out on top talent due to a lengthy hiring process.

Target your campaigns

 When it comes to choosing the right advertising method for your recruitment campaign, you need to consider your audience. Who are you trying to attract? For example, those in the “baby boomer” generation tend to respond better to face to face interaction. This means direct phone calls, traditional interviews and jobs listings in newspapers or online job sites. On the other hand, millennials usually respond better to new forms of contact like social media campaigns or text messages.

Encourage referrals

If you’re looking to find talent from within your existing network, referrals are a great way to find potential candidates using your existing employees’ contacts. A lot of companies use this method during busy seasons, where they need to hire a lot of employees in a short period of time. To encourage your employees to refer friends of family for positions, you could offer a bonus if they refer a successful applicant.

Work on your employer branding

Your employer branding is the image you put across to potential candidates of your business as a workplace. If you make your business appealing, it will save you a lot of time searching for employees, as they will already see it as a good place to work. Try working on your image by asking for testimonials from current employees, updating your careers page on your website, and responding to any review on sites like Glassdoor and Yelp.

Conclusion

 Finding and hiring talented, competent employees has huge benefits. It can improve productivity and make your business run smoothly. By following these advertising strategies, you can hire employees that will drive your business to success.

Michelle Deery is a content writer for Heroic Search. Her work has been featured in publications such as Entrepreneur. She specializes in helping businesses boost their profits

When you decide it is time to add a new member to your team, it can be a daunting affair and can take a fair deal of time to find the right person for the job. If you are new to hiring people into your business, conducting a job quiz will help you screen the suitable candidates for the job.

Move quickly

If you are hiring for a role, you will likely get an influx of candidates who come within the first few days of posting. These candidates will often be the best ones for your job and will be off the market if you don’t act quickly. When you receive applications you need to ensure that you are able to reply as swiftly as you can and arrange interviews rapidly to ensure that the candidate stays interested in your role.

Write a good job description

When you are writing your job description for potential employees it is incredibly important that you don’t follow the normal rules. Most companies will simply write down what the job requires, what skills you need and etc… however this isn’t something which will grab attention and get a lot of interest. Instead, add some information about the benefits you can offer for your employee. Talk about training, progression, travel, and holidays. Make your candidates see why they would want to work for you, and what you can offer them.

Embrace social media

Don’t live in the dark ages, make sure that your company stays up to date with technology and that you have a fun and exciting presence online. When you advertise for a job, the candidate will immediately look you up online to see what kind of people and brand you are. You need to make sure you are appealing to people from all backgrounds and that they will want to be a part of your team going forward.

Fit personality

Skills are important for a job because the person needs to be capable of carrying out the work: but this isn’t the only thing you need to think about. When you interview a candidate you need to get along on a personal level. If you are going to bring this person into your workplace they need to be a person who will fit in. Make sure that you like the person and that they like you.

Background checks

If you want to ensure that you are hiring a good person in your business you need to make sure you perform background checks for employment for every candidate. This will tell you about their criminal past and whether or not they can be trusted in your workplace. Your reputation is important so you need to only employ people you believe you can trust. Alongside the background check, you may want to order a drug test to ensure that the person your hire is clean, of sound mind and stable for the role. The last thing you want is someone who comes to work with drugs in their system.