According to the latest “Employment Situation” release from the United States Bureau of Labor Statistics, the unemployment rate is down to 3.8 percent. This means that there are fewer available candidates for each job opening, thus putting the power into the hands of the job seeker. As an employer, this makes it challenging to attract top talent, since many of the most competitive candidates are already employed.

Most companies will prefer to hire top talent, as according to the Harvard Business Review, a high performer is estimated to have a 400 percent higher productivity level than the average performer. Additionally, hiring average talent just to fill open jobs can be costly for a company. It has been said that the cost of replacing a departed employee is their salary plus half. For example, if a salaried employee making $40,000 per year left, it would cost approximately $60,000 to replace him or her. Because of this, employers must attract (and retain) top talent.

To attract top talent companies must have a “robust people strategy, an innovative and well-structured recruiting program, a strong value proposition and employer brand,” according to recruitment media company Nexxt. There are four ways that employers can do this:

Evaluate Your Current Talent Pool

To figure out where you want to go, you must look where you have been. Take a look at your current employees and assess their strengths and weaknesses. You can use a SWOT (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, Threats) analysis to make this process easier.

When evaluating your current staff, you will figure out a framework of an ideal candidate. Additionally, you can determine areas that need improvement and create a training program to help your employees continue to develop in their careers.

Learn from Competitors

You should always be monitoring your competitors to stay ahead of the game. By conducting research on how they are attracting top talent, you can alter your hiring strategies to do something similar. Not only do you get to learn what the competition is doing, but you can develop your employer value proposition, according to the team at Nexxt.

Reaching Your Target Market

Knowing your target market is one of the first things you must do when creating a business. Once you have realized who this market is, you must figure out how to reach them. In today’s constantly-connected society, if your company does not have a digital strategy, it will likely fall behind. As it has been said, “adapt, or die,” and reaching your target market is no different.

You must create compelling content that will resonate with your audience. Do some in-house research and ask employees what they like and do not like about your current website/content. Then ask them what they like about other sites that they frequent the most. You can take this research to revamp your content strategy and stay up-to-date with society’s rapid changes.

Appeal to the Needs of Top Talent

Once you’ve attracted top talent, how do you get them to stay? Research shows that today’s employees are valuing flexible work environments more than they did in the past. Being able to maintain a healthy work-life balance has become increasingly valuable for employees in many industries. In order to figure out what your employees value, conduct a survey.

If your company has outdated protocols surrounding vacation time, etc. chances are employees will eventually lack the motivation to continue working for you. Additionally, top performers are usually career-focused and enjoy opportunities to continue developing their careers. Offering professional development opportunities is a way to not only attract, but also retain top talent.

Wrap Up

Companies everywhere strive to attract the most talented workers to their staff. With today’s candidate-favored job market, figuring out how to stand out from the competition to hire these top candidates has become fairly difficult. Not only do companies have to figure out how to attract top talent, but also how to retain these employees. By using these four tips, you can change your hiring strategy to attract top talent in this candidate-friendly job market.

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