How to Attract Quality Talent: A Strategic Guide for Today’s Recruiters
Recruitics
A global data-powered recruitment marketing agency — we help companies attract and hire great talent.
To attract and retain quality talent, create a magnetic employer brand and culture, leverage employee referrals, embrace skills-based hiring, and optimize tech tools.
Key Takeaways
Finding the right talent to fulfill a role is crucial to businesses; it has a widespread impact on a company's productivity and efficiency. In 2025, the talent acquisition teams will focus more on quality candidates.
The "best" applicants with top-tier education and experience are now less preferred — instead, the "right" — or quality applicants are in. The stats show how essential quality employees are: The top 5% of employees are responsible for delivering 26% of a company's outcomes, according to Valesco Industries.
While a 2020 study showed that 69% of companies surveyed reported "talent shortages," there are many ways that companies can adopt a fresh mindset. They can step up to the plate with a winning recruitment approach and use effective tactics to stand out. It's even possible to lure candidates before opportunities arise.
Read on for insights and practical strategies for finding, attracting, and keeping quality talent without a huge budget.
Building a Magnetic Employer Brand
Industry behemoths like Google didn't become sought-after employers simply because they had great products; they envisioned a new culture for their employees. They created an employer brand synonymous with generous benefits and spaces that fostered and imbued creativity, and the word spread that it was a great workplace.
Creating an employer value proposition (EVP) is imperative for companies to attract talent. Being known for prioritizing built-in growth opportunities, having a truly collaborative culture, and being able to attract other noteworthy employees can compel talent to see how one business differs from the rest and enthusiastically apply.
Tip: Recruitics' team of experts helps companies create and elevate employer branding, bringing brands to life as diverse as AAA insurance to Dunkin' with solutions like brand content, employee advocacy programs, and DE&I initiatives.
Once businesses have the stuff it takes to draw interest, the next step is to make the brand's virtues visible. Prospects will want to work with companies that look and feel authentic. They want to see employees satisfied and that their employers genuinely recognize and value them — having an active social media presence amplifies these messages. Plus, if employees are using social media to show pride in their work and company, resharing this content — instead of self-proclaiming the pros of the business — will make brands stickier in the minds of prospective applicants.
Building a Culture That Attracts Top Performers
A positive workplace culture is among the most essential aspects jobseekers consider, especially companies that align with their values. This is especially true for younger workers who are steadily entering the workforce. Accenture research shows employees also want a sense of connection, trust, and belonging. They want their work to have meaning and prioritize their health and wellness.
Putting these soft values into sharp focus "unlocks two-thirds of a person's potential at work," Ellyn Shook, Accenture's chief leadership and human resources officer, told TIME magazine.
How can employers show they care about the culture underpinning their businesses? Consider what variables can be offered and what matters most to your employees (Baby Boomers and Gen Zers will likely care about different things!). If revenue is tight, how can work arrangements be made more flexible? Do employees have a straightforward way to climb the company ladder through professional development opportunities beyond lunch-and-learns? How does the company recognize its employees and champion their well-being? How much does the company trust its employees and offer autonomy? Can employees pursue projects that match their interests?
Lastly, when it comes to culture, if possible, show – don't tell when it comes to culture. For instance, if a company wants to foster an inclusive workplace that champions diversity, can the business walk the talk with a diverse leadership team in place and a committee that oversees DEI initiatives? The more specific and illustrative these aspects of culture are, the better (and more true-to-life!) they will become in the eyes of applicants.
Once the company culture resonates with staff, it will encourage employees to speak up, and referrals to the right candidates will come knocking when opportunities arise.
Maximizing Employee Referrals
Having an excellent company culture is one thing, but sweetening the deal by incentivizing current employees to make successful referrals can increase the number of eyes looking for the best talent.
But opaque, haphazard referrals need to be more effective. It's worth the time spent thinking through the details of referral programs and making the process transparent. Be clear and fair with current employees about the referral process. To get buy-in, communicate when roles are open, what qualities to look for in candidates, and what rewards they might earn for passing on successful applicants and when they receive them.
However, a caveat to the power of referrals is also considering how to maintain the balance of a diverse application pool. To avoid an echo chamber of too-similarly-minded employees, be mindful of the equilibrium between golden employee referrals and the company's commitment to diverse perspectives and candidates.
To democratize the workplace, hiring professionals can use skills-first hiring practices to widen the pool of potential.
Skills-Based Hiring: The New Paradigm
This new paradigm in what employers (and employees!) are looking for requires a novel approach to hiring. Candidates who simply check the boxes of what a job description mentions need to do more to satisfy companies that must be agile in a dynamic economy.
Recommended by LinkedIn
According to a LinkedIn report, real estate and equipment rental services, oil, gas, mining, education, and utilities workers are the industries leading the way for skills-first talent that don't require a bachelor's degree.
Here are a couple of ways to envision candidates outside the status quo.
Assessing Attitudes & Aptitudes
Companies like Deloitte and Google have transformed their traditional definitions of desirable candidates to extend past the conformities of what university they attended—or if their experiences and job descriptions mirror one another. Instead, these cutting-edge employers work to find employees whose attitudes and aptitudes bode well with the nimbleness that the company must maintain to stay competitive and profitable.
Assessing candidates may now involve measuring traits, like how adaptable they are to changes in their role or company. Does the candidate exemplify a growth mindset, or are they more static, taking on more horizontal roles? How well can they incorporate the thoughts and efforts of staff not on their team?
Gamified Assessments
With this growing philosophy to hire for potential rather than credentials, 48% of modern recruiters are using skills data to fill roles that various methods of assessments can gather. For instance, PriceWaterhouseCoopers sizes up their candidates' problem-solving ability by gamified tests that might mimic situations they may encounter on the job, giving recruiters a better sense of how they might perform at work. A word of caution: Recruiters should only use this method to understand their fundamental job skills rather than make it seem like they're competing against others. It may not be a good look to give the impression that competition is paramount to success at the company.
However, as the ways to screen candidates evolve, so should the technology and data that support them, speeding up and simplifying the process.
Strategic Use of Technology and Data
Technology and data can be a modern recruiter's best friend if used wisely. The AI in Hiring and Work 2024 report found that while there are many uses for tech and AI in the recruitment process, 58.9% said that AI is best used for automated resume screening and ranking. A staggering 89.1% also said AI significantly or somewhat sped up the time to fill KPI.
Before delving into the best tech tools to meet your needs, identify which key metrics will track the success and process of fulfilling vacant roles. Using KPIs as a guide, the right applicant tracking system (ATS) acts as a dashboard to illuminate where applicants are in the process and what needs to be done next.
Tip: Check out Recruitics' Vision Pro for full-funnel tracking and customizable analytics.
Once the role gap is filled, use data extracted from the ATS to identify ways to improve the process. After all, visibility around reliable data makes it easier to make continual process improvements. If the process is tracked well, it could be like the other 77.9% of companies that claimed AI helped moderate or significant cost savings, according to a survey by Workable.
The time recruiters save by using improved technology and data tools can be redirected to focus on what humans do best—connecting and sharing with others.
Revolutionizing the Candidate Experience
Ideally, the trend of "ghosting" candidates and prospective employers will be long gone by 2025. But first, employers may have to rethink their practices to ensure candidates feel informed and respected during the application process.
Lean into proactive communication so candidates can handle the time-consuming (and expensive!) rounds of interviews. Start by showing a level of care in the job description. Candidates can glean a lot at this step: Is it clear and specific? Does it showcase personality and give an idea of the company culture?
Some companies even leverage best practices in job descriptions by laying out precisely what candidates can expect during the application process: when interviews start, how many interviews there will be, and whether someone will respond to every applicant—even if they don't get an interview. Anticipate questions and endeavor to answer them as transparently as possible; this will guarantee less reactive communication and work throughout the process.
Ensuring interviewing candidates have access to the talent team, various levels of employees, and tangential departments throughout the organization also helps them feel supported in the process. This ensures they have all the information they need to decide whether to accept the offer.
Now that the talent pipeline has been reassessed and reworked, charting the action plan step-by-step will make the process more easily replicable and involve less thinking each time it's carried out.
Implementation Guide
Creating a list of all the steps needed to hire the best of the best can be complicated. To keep it easy, here are the top must-haves to ensure talent acquisition strategies are set up for success:
Stay Ahead of the Curve
Equipped with what it takes to attract quality talent, businesses stay ahead of any potential "skills shortages," by creating strong employer brands and remaining adaptable to what they're seeking in their staff.
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To implement these best practices, leverage Recruitics to get you to the finish line more quickly with quality candidates.