Stop Blaming Candidates

What do major hiring challenges require?

Major hiring changes.

What if companies aren't getting enough qualified candidates?

They tend to blame outside sources…

-the economy

-presumably lazy applicants

But here’s the truth…

Regardless of whether or not these outside sources are contributing to your hiring pains, you can’t change them.

The only thing you can control and change is how you hire!

And here’s a harder truth...

What is the most common hiring problem?

It isn’t the economy or the applicants... it’s your job postings.

Let me explain.

The only way to attract applicants is to ATTRACT them, meaning that you have to offer something to them that is attractive.

If you’re not attracting applicants, then your job ad/job offering is not attractive. 

How do you make your job attractive so that you can attract applicants?

1. Empathy

You need to put yourself in the shoes of job seekers and create your hiring strategy as if you were the applicant.

What are your wants and needs in a job? What are dealbreakers?

2. The Job Ad

Ok, so you’re pretending you’re the job seeker. Would you be excited if you read the job posting for your company? Or does it just sound like a list of demands?  

Make sure your job postings are job ads that market to job seekers rather than job descriptions that solely list out responsibilities and intimidating, unnecessary qualifications.

Focus on what makes your job great! Include your benefits, growth opportunities, the great elements of your company culture, etc.

3. The Job

Changing the Job Ad is the easiest step. However, if you’re struggling to come up with positive things to write about the job in the job ad, then you’re facing a solvable, but harder fix.

You’ll need to go a bit deeper than words to figure out how you can make the job itself more appealing.

This may impact how you do business. It may impact how many employees are remote vs. in-office or part-time vs. full-time.

Don't shy away from bold changes!

The big, bold changes are the ones that have the power to turn your hiring struggles around.

4. The Culture

Finally, the hardest and most important change…your culture.

One of the first things most applicants do is look up online reviews for the company they’re interested in applying to. 

If you’re a job seeker and you see that a company has tons of bad reviews on Glassdoor and Indeed, would you want to apply to or work for that company? No!

If you have a bad company culture, you will need to have some very honest and intentional conversations with your business leaders and employees about what’s going wrong, what needs to change, and how to change it. 

In the meantime, ask your current employees to write reviews.

It’s possible that the reviews online are from past employees who had negative experiences, but your current employees love working for your company.

Don’t expect that your employees will write a review of their own accord. Ask them to. Don’t demand, but ask.

Listen…

I know these changes are getting hard and harder to make, but the reality is, until you take care of your employees, create a healthy work environment, and look at your hiring process as a candidate, you won't be able to overcome your current hiring challenges.

Making the hard changes means long-term success!

-You'll become the company people want to work for.

-Your employees will want their friends to come work with you.

-You'll have an endless stream of candidates excited about your positions!

We've seen so many clients throw money at job boards (because they think it’s an easy fix) and fail to succeed.

Real success comes from making hard changes.

Try making just one hard change starting today!

If you have any questions or would like help implementing these changes, please do not hesitate to reach out!

You can do this, and we’re here to help!