Keys to Competing for Talent

Quick Summary
Your business is only as good as the people running it – namely, your employees. So naturally you want the most talented people on your team. While there are plenty of job seekers out there, you may have to compete for the best, because the excellent candidates are in demand. That means taking a multi-faceted approach to hiring employees and maintaining a strategic, long-term view of the job recruitment process. You’ll need to balance passive recruiting, such as posting jobs on your website and job boards, with active recruiting, including using headhunters, leveraging social media, working professional groups, incentivizing referrals, raiding the competition, and sweetening the pot with sign-on bonuses along with competitive compensation packages.

How to Cast a Nationwide Job Net

There are a myriad of job posting tools available to help you search nationwide for the perfect candidate. These include job boards, job search engines, social networks like LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter, professional associations, job fairs and good old help wanted signs in the window. Referrals from your own employees may be among your best options.

Working With Recruiters and Agencies

Recruiters and employment agencies can save you time by pre-screening prospects. Plus, they are experts at locating the highly talented people who are already working and not necessarily tuned in to your job postings.

Should You Raid the Competition?

While it may be tempting to lure talent from your competitors because of their experience and success in your field, you must tread lightly due to the threat of trade secret violations if they bring with them proprietary information. A contracts attorney may need to be consulted to help build in some legal protections.

How to Sweeten the Pot With a Signing Bonus

Signing bonuses of anywhere from five to 20 percent of the starting salary can be a powerful tool to entice a sought after candidate or for hard-to-fill positions. Bonuses are a good way to offset the expenses of moving to a new job without adding to your long-term expenses.
 
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