Death. Debilitating Illness. Retirement. Quitting. Your most knowledgeable employees are on the precipice of disappearing. Every day, 10,000 Boomers retire. Your youngest rising stars – 21-37-year-old millennials — now comprise the biggest part of the workforce. But they are far less likely to stick around than their predecessors. Odds are 66% will leave in less than two years.

It’s a workplace crisis.

How prepared are you to fill your inevitable next opening?

More and more, particularly small and mid-sized companies, are finding themselves vulnerable, caught unprepared to recruit top talent.   When employees step out, critical work goes undone. Current staff is already working overtime. There’s a limit to how much more they can do to cover. The busier you are the harder it is to make time to replace your mission-critical talent.

Today’s labor-constrained environment is hyper-competitive, making it more challenging than ever to attract and retain the right people to get the job done.

Will your company fail this recruiting checklist?

Review this checklist to see where you stand when it comes to competing for the talent you need in today’s tight labor marketplace.

  1. Mind your brand!

Every touchpoint you have with potential, current or past employees – not just customers — is part of your brand. What you do and how you do it in this connected age is vitally important. What’s the buzz on your company?

  • Have you checked Glassdoor, Yelp, Google and more?
  • Do prospects and employees share the love or sound a warning?
  • Compliments or complaints, how does your company respond? Is your most recent review… recent – within at least the last 12 months?

  1. Are You Irresistible?

You are not the only game in town. Top Talent Wants to Know WIFM (what’s in it for me). Selection is a two-way street. At a minimum – just to be on par — offer competitive benefits– pay, health care, vacation. Beyond that…

  • Have you effectively identified what “why you?” attributes are compelling enough for your desirable candidates choose your company above all others?

  1. Job Descriptions: Drop the Kitchen Sink Boilerplate Job Ad

  • Don’t subject your prospects three-page job descriptions requiring hours of needless keyword resume contortions in the hopes of surviving your automated tracking system (ATS). Save the three-page job description for internal use.
  • Cover the basics required for desired experience specific to the job at hand, opportunity for professional growth and explain how that job will contribute to the organization.
  • Not sure how to write a compelling job description? Read this.

  1. Application Process: Quick & Easy Does It

  • Can your applications be completed in a few minutes over a mobile phone?

That’s what today’s candidates expect. Waste their time and they’ll abandon you quicker than a full e-shopping cart too far away from payday. Besides, how many seconds does it take your ATS or even human reviewers to reject an applicant? And you expect them to take how much time to apply for your opening? Ask no more than what’s minimally necessary. Make resume uploads a snap. Make sure to follow that with a friendly auto-confirmation thank you.

  1. Hiring Process: Straightforward, Organized, Speedy

A disorganized, protracted hiring process will negate your best public relations efforts in other areas. Almost half of all candidates are still waiting to hear back from employers two months (or longer) after they’ve applied, according to a new survey of job hunters by nonprofit research firm Talent Board.

Streamlining your hiring process includes analyzing and addressing;

  • Hiring needs: Have you identified your new, temp and replacement hiring needs and a process?
  • Salary and benefits: Are they clear, competitive and transparently communicated?
  • Application process: Is the application and screening process streamlined?
  • Interview panel: Do they know how to interview? How will both hard and soft skills be assessed? Can the panel members answer questions about the company strategy and why yours is a great company to work for?
  • Decision process: Is there up-front alignment on what makes a candidate ideal? How will the decision be made? Who owns it? How can it be kept to as few steps and be completed as quickly as possible (before some other company snags your top candidate)?
  • Closing the loop: Who contacts those candidates not hired? What is the protocol around that?
  • Thank all your candidates for their time and consideration because it’s the right thing to do. Even you consider that a waste of time, remember that all points of the hiring process contribute to your brand, including how you say goodbye.

  1. On-boarding: Do Not Overlook This!

    The first day, week, month and 90 days are critical are critical for new employees.

Here’s just a few elements to consider for a good on-boarding process, that should be in place the first day your new employee starts

  • Basic tools: Do they have desk, a phone, a computer, a log-on, an email address, a badge, a passkey?
  • Welcome package: employee handbook, benefits package, organization chart, phone list, someone assigned to join them at lunch the first day.
  • Training: Is there an assigned trainer? For how long? Is there an established protocol for weekly one-on-ones to make sure new hires have the information and tools they need to contribute? How are they getting the information they need to do the job well? How readily available is it? Does the training pace make sense?

  1. Retention: Don’t Ignore the Talent You Have

As a recruiter, I almost hate to share this fact – it’s so much cheaper for companies to retain than recruit and train new employees. The old adage “Make new friends, but keep the old. One is silver, the other gold” is every bit as true when it comes to employees. Outside hires take three years to perform as well as internal hires in the same job. True strategic talent management goes well beyond focusing on attracting prospective new employees, interviewing, and hiring. Your best employees are the most poach-able. It pays to make sure you keep them happy, engaged, compensated competitively and growing to meet both their personal and your business’s needs. If your employee’s best opportunity to maintain a healthy work-life balance or advance is to leave, there’s a good chance they will.

  • What’s your plan for current talent management?
  • Do you have a plan in place to cover their work if they’re gone?

How’d You Score?

The checklist is a gap identifier. Unless you up your game in all 7 areas, you’re not going to get top talent. Ignore this at the detriment to your business’ future. The best companies stay the best companies with strategic talent management (recruitment and retention) processes that are thoughtful, strategic, organized, and repeatable. This is not wing-able stuff! Your reputation from the hiring process can either attract scare talent away.

“At the end of the day people won’t remember what you said or did, they will remember how you made them feel.” – Maya Angelou

Need Help?

Need to know more about positioning your company to move quickly to hire, inspire and retain the talent required to keep your business humming? Think ahead. Make a plan. Work the plan. Win.

Schedule your complimentary 15-minute discovery session.

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