Convincing Top Candidates to Consider and Accept Your Job Offer

With the lower unemployment rate allowing job seekers to be in the driver’s seat and technology enabling companies and recruiters to reach more people than ever before, finding good talent is taking a backseat to winning over that talent. Here’s how to make the most of your efforts to convince top candidates to consider—and accept—your job offer. 

Make all of your recruiting activities accessible on the mobile platform

If you’ve ever lost, forgotten or neglected to charge your smart phone, you’re likely familiar with that immediate jolt of panic (possibly bordering on terror) that sets in. It’s as if part of you is missing. With these strong connections to our phones, we expect to be able to conduct anything of importance using them. And job seeking activities definitely fall within that category. If you want the best response rate from job applicants, anything you need to communicate about a job opportunity or your company should be readily and easily accessible via the mobile platform.  

Be sure people can find job opportunities, learn about your company, apply for jobs, ask questions, interview and accept job offers easily with their smart phones. If potential candidates don’t have the option to apply for jobs using a mobile platform, there’s a good chance many of them will just move on to a company that does provide that option. Make it easy for them to not only upload resumes and complete applications, but also schedule their own interviews based on hiring managers’ calendar availability. And, remember, responsiveness is paramount to keeping individuals engaged and interested.

Create videos about your company

People love video. It's high impact, engaging, and let's face it, much easier than reading. Use people's YouTube addiction to your advantage. You can create everything from corporate videos that describe the company (make it interesting!) to informal employee-created videos that provide enthusiastic, real-life insights into the personality of the company. Show why employees like it there and let them discuss their favorite perks. Videos can also be created for job opportunities, acting as a live job description or recruitment ad. They can even be individualized for specific recruits. The key is to be creative and compelling.

Make your job descriptions exciting

Don’t simply dust off the old job description and assume it’s going to be a) accurate or b) appealing. Many times the original job description for the now-open position has changed substantially over time, so it’s important to verify what the position really entails. You don’t want to mislead someone with a description that doesn’t really fit what you need the person to do, since that can often lead to the quick departure of your new hire. At the same time, you want to make the job posting interesting enough that people don’t glaze over while reading it. If possible, get feedback from the person leaving the role (if the individual was a strong performer) about the most important and interesting aspects of the position. Also ask coworkers and stakeholders what they find most valuable about the job. 

Create a job description that encompasses both facts and passion about the role. Compare your job description with similar jobs at other companies in your industry. Ask people to give their opinions of which descriptions are more interesting and why. Use that information to help tweak and improve what you’ve written. You can also ask potential candidates what terminology would make the job sound the most appealing. And, remember, with the popularity of video, you’ll want to include a video version of your exciting new job posting as well.

Be very quick in responding to candidates

We’ve come a long way from the days of getting resumes printed and sending them out via snail mail, waiting for weeks to even get acknowledgement that the resume was received. Now, we want things to be instantaneous (especially the millennials!) People want to apply quickly, connect quickly, interview quickly, and get employed quickly. If top candidates start the process but don’t receive an offer in a reasonable amount of time, which is often less than two weeks, they tend to drop out and move on to another opportunity.
 It might be helpful to look at past data to see how the quality of new hires correlates to the speed of the hiring process. Is the quality of personnel diminished when the hiring process was slow? In other words, did the good people move on and leave you with the 2^nd or 3^rd string? If so, make that information available to everyone involved in the hiring process so they realize the impact a delayed hire can have on business. If need be, single out the slowpokes and see if that helps kick start their efforts.

Present data to top candidates that shows how well matched they are to the job

Track hiring and performance data to see what works. If you have facts about the types of people who typically do well in your company and in specific roles, you create a win-win situation. First, you know what skills and attributes to look for, and you have a good idea of the type of personality that fits your culture and job needs. This will help you look for the right people to begin with. Then, once you find the best people, you can present them with measurable data showing how strongly they correlate to people who fit in with and do well in your company. Showing them how likely they are to succeed and enjoy working in this new job gives you great leverage and is an excellent selling point.

The bottom line is, you need to have a solid idea of the types of candidates who work most successfully in your company, and be innovative in the ways you attract, connect with and sell those kinds of candidates on working for you.

Visit our website at www.talentcircles.com, contact us at sales@TalentCircles.com or call 888-280-0808 for more information.