10 Actionable Tips for Hiring in a Tight Job Market

Try the ten tips below to supercharge your hiring process.

1) Rethink your salary structure

You may be having a hard time recruiting top talent and retaining existing employees because of your salary structure. Research shows that competitive pay is the number one reason employees stay with their companies.

Do some research into comparable organizations and the median pay scale in your area. Make adjustments based on the advice of professional recruiters.

2) Recruit a dedicated hiring manager

The latest job numbers from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics show that unemployment is steadily dropping. That’s great for the labor force and great for the economy, but not necessarily helpful when recruiting new talent for your organization.

When jobs are in short supply, you may have a surplus of qualified candidates applying for your company’s open positions. But when you — and your competitors — are struggling to fill openings, recruiting a dedicated hiring manager can give your company an edge.

A hiring manager can streamline and integrate all the steps in the recruiting process that may be scattered between admin and executive levels and work full time to find the best candidates.

3) Explore new recruiting strategies

You aren’t doing enough if you only advertise roles on the top job search engines. Every day tens of thousands of jobs are posted to those boards, and it’s hard for candidates to sift through the spam to find quality organizations like yours.

Explore new recruiting strategies, like participating in job fairs and conducting pre-interviews via Zoom to shake things up.

4) Individualize your hiring process to each candidate

Job candidates want to see that you want to hire them for who they are, not because you need a body at a desk. Once you get to the final rounds of interviews, tailor your hiring process to each candidate.

You can also redesign the career page on your website to customize and personalize the process as candidates click through options.You may also be able to reduce the number of interview rounds to make the process less taxing for both you and the candidate.

5) Speed up the process

On the subject of making the hiring process less tiring for your candidates, think of ways you can increase the speed by which you get from round one to final hire. How many applications do you instantly reject at the initial screening? How many candidates do you bring in for an initial interview?

A slow hiring process can turn potential candidates off, and other candidates who are willing to wait might get other offers in the process. Speed it up to ensure you don’t lose anyone.

6) Consider contracting with an external search partner

When it comes to searching for candidates, casting the widest net possible is not always wise. Throwing a job post up on Indeed or Glassdoor will certainly get you a lot of responses, but are they quality candidates?

Contract with a professional recruiting organization to get top-notch candidates. Rather than dealing with 20 so-so candidates, fast-forward to picking between two or three gems.

7) Review your organization’s marketing plan

You may be turning potential new hires off with the way you market your organization, discouraging them from even considering applying. Candidates largely conduct their searches across multiple platforms. That means you have multiple opportunities to market your organization.

You want the messaging to be consistent and clear. State your salary range, state your company values succinctly, and include testimonials by your current employees.

8) Emphasize your employee referral program

Cultivating a strong employee referral program, with clear benefits for your current employees, promotes a positive culture within the workplace. It also shows new hires that your current workforce is happy enough with their jobs to want to bring their friends on board.

A-players tend to know other A-players. Leverage the talent already working within your organization to attract high-quality candidates.

9) Hone your job description

Remember that candidates are searching for jobs across multiple platforms, and potentially encountering your job post on all of them. You have to be able to stand out amongst a crowd of hundreds of thousands of job postings.

While it’s important to include all the benefits and requirements of the position, be concise. You don’t want to bore them or scare off potential candidates with a 5,000-word job description.

Find the perfect balance between transparency and too much information.Utilize visual organization like charts and bulleted lists to your advantage to help make your job listings stand out from the crowd.

10) Emphasize your remote and flexible work options

Let’s face it — we live in a remote world.

Telecommuting, working from home, Zoom conferencing — potential candidates will expect you to be fully on board with all of it. Emphasize how accommodating you are to remote and flexible work requests in your initial job postings.