If you want your workforce to provide customers with exceptional service or deliver a superior product, you need to attract top talent, train them properly and keep them loyal. But, finding the right employees isn’t easy, and prospective employees have much more negotiating power. Although there are thousands of graduates graduating every year, attracting the top grads to your business is very difficult. Small and medium companies must respond by being more creative in their recruiting.
Employer branding strategies for small companies
Employer branding has become a social part of branding when it comes to helping people to find our jobs and get interested as a company. The goal of employer branding is to create the preference on the minds of both current and future employees to think of us as being their employer of choice. And all of those efforts that we do whether it be at a career fair, whether it be in our job advertisements or whether it be through the recruitment agencies that we may use. We have to be unrelenting in recruiting the best talents. Social media has made it possible to get your employer brand out to not only the masses or the active candidates but also the passive candidates. Use social media to understand your employees’ networks and utilize those networks to drive internal referrals. All of those are with a plan to get people to think of us as the best employer when it comes to applying for jobs.
The latest iteration is people are changing careers multiple times. There are a lot of people used to work for large companies; now, they’re trying to find a job with a smaller company. But smaller companies are a little bit concerned about how they’re going to fit in. There are less red tape and fewer restrictions on employees in small businesses than large companies. People aren’t always moving around with inter-company transfers. A big job in a smaller company usually gives the employees more experience. They’re exposed to different things because things aren’t as segmented as they are in larger companies.
How the ideal candidate for your company looks like
The best candidate for a small or a medium company is somebody who’s open to working in a multidisciplinary team environment. When we were recruiting, we tend to look across a broad and wide range of backgrounds and skill sets. We also seek out employees who are committed to making the organization into the one that people will treasure to be a part of it.
It’s mattering that the new employee experiences and identifies that he or she is the best person for that position. And more importantly that they know that every other person that’s there going to be working with is the best in their roles as well. It will set a standard for excellence that will carry through on your company. In a small start-up business, one bad apple can ruin an entire company culture. There’s just no room for people that are going to fight with other people or have a big ego.
But what does the ideal Company look like for your candidate?
Smart candidates don’t always want to focus on what the job is going to get for today but ultimately where it’s going to put them down the road. They look at the mission and the vision of your company that can add value to their career.
The passionate candidates will observe the company website, profiles of existing employees especially of your management in professional networks like LinkedIn. We’ve all probably heard the term that people don’t quit jobs; they quit managers.
In addition to the professional side of the organization, the culture grabs the attention of the aspirants. Your potential employees want to know what previous employees said of what about your organization.
Salary along with the position is always a huge factor. However, who wants a job that pays more but going to be boring for 40 hours a week?
Even with the rising rate of unemployment, many companies encounter stiff competition for employees who have the right mix of skills. That’s where a bright and consistent employer brand can give you an edge. We all have to work harder than everybody else to bring a small business to life. It is like trying to make something physical out of thin air.