How To Narrow Down Your Recruitment Search To Find The Best Talent

When embarking on the hiring process, there are all the typical ways to find new employees for your business. You might post on job boards online, for example, or you might advertise your vacancies at a job fair. This is all well and good, and such methods may prove fruitful. However, you may face a huge number of applicants, and picking out the best of the bunch can be a time-consuming task. But what if there was a way to cut through all of that? What if you could gain access to the best employees in a more efficient way? Well… you can!

The next time you need to find employees for your business, consider how you might narrow down your search to find the best talent. We have some ideas here that will not only help you find employees for your business, but that should also help you get the best possible candidates for the job you have to offer. Interested? Sure you are! After all, you have positions to fill, and you want the very best people for the job.

#1: Use social media

You probably use social media for both your personal and business life, but did you know it could be useful within the hiring process? You might want to join certain Facebook groups connected within your industry, for example, as you will then have the means to both advertise jobs and network with other employers who may know of people who would be a good fit within your business. You might also use LinkedIn for the same purposes, as again, you can both post your vacancy and network with other business professionals. Social media also gives you access to HR tech influencers, the influencers and leaders in talent acquisition who may be able to give you some specific advice on your recruitment process. And you can also use social media to attract possible candidates, posting images of your hopefully happy workforce online, alongside comments from past and current employees as to why they enjoy(ed) working for you.

#2: Engage your current employees

As suggested above, you might ask your employees to post something on social media to attract the attention of job seekers. You might also offer your employees a cash bonus to refer candidates to you. They might know of people who would be a perfect fit for your business, be they friends, ex-colleagues, or people they studied with at college or university. You do need to be careful – you don’t want your employees referring people to you who aren’t a good fit, just to get that cash bonus – so you still need to be diligent within the hiring process, only interviewing those people who match your job description, and giving out the cash bonus only when a referred candidate successfully fills a position.

#3: Reach out to colleges and universities

Reach out to soon-to be college graduates, catching them early by arranging a time to visit colleges and universities to promote your business and talk about the benefits of working for you. This is your opportunity to find the freshest young minds about to embark on a possible career within your industry, so you might be able to snap them up before your competitors do. You might also post your vacancies on student job boards, publications, and social media groups. Consider running an internship programme too, giving college students the opportunity to get valuable work experience with you. Not only is this useful to them, but if you have interns that prove invaluable to you, you will have the opportunity to directly approach them with a job offer. Check out our previous article for more advice on hiring college graduates.

#4: Break down geographical barriers

Do you need to employ employees within your locale? If you are able to hire remote workers, then do so. Modern technology allows you to communicate and collaborate with people all over the world, so if you can’t find the top talent in your town or city, consider reaching out to people elsewhere in the world. Okay, so we are talking about narrowing down your search and not expanding it, but you can still channel your efforts through job ads on social media, or you might advertise and search for applicants on websites such as We Work Remotely. The world, as they say, is your oyster!

#5: Use your website

Your website will primarily be used by customers and clients, but it might also attract the attention of potential candidates. They will be Googling specific job roles, so they might stumble upon your business within their search. Therefore, create a ‘We Are Hiring’ page on your website, where people can scour the positions you have available. And even you are not hiring, or when your positions have been filled, you might still accept resumés from those looking for a job, in the event a vacancy will be opened up in the future. To ensure the right candidates find your website, use these SEO tips to optimise your job adverts, and link your website to the social media groups that pertain to your business.

#6: Consider your current employees

You might not need to start the hiring process if you have employees that are suited to the positions you have to offer. Talk to your employees about any potential vacancies coming up, and encourage them to approach you if they are interested. Or, having had a read through of their resumés you already have on file, directly approach them with the opportunity to do something different. Not only will this save you time and money on the hiring process, but you might a) find the very best person from within your team, and b) give one of your employees greater job satisfaction by giving them something more closely linked to their abilities.

Over to you

We hope these tips have been useful to you, but what do you think? Have you utilised ways to narrow down the recruitment search when you have had job vacancies within your business? Let us know if so, and give us all the opportunity to both find the best employees, and spend less time in trying to do so. Thanks for reading.