Show the love and attract the best

Like any new relationship, to attract the right person you have to let them know what you want! Simple Laws of Attraction apply.

Be visually appealing and consistent. If you are advertising your jobs on social media, make sure you are using similar imagery and tone of voice on your job adverts elsewhere. It’s sometimes the sub-conscious that reminds a candidate to call you about a job, or call and update you on their current status, so a strong use of imagery or colour can be a great memory point. Be the best version of yourself anywhere you are visible, so that includes your offices, events, social media, your website and maybe in the press.

Once you have caught their eye don’t play too cool, reply to their email (maybe this is an automated response) but please reply in some way to every application. There is a job out there for everyone, it just might not be the one you are working on right now! As I used to preach when I worked in recruitment, every bit of communication is a PR exercise. If you can say ‘no’ in a constructive way, that can still be a positive experience for the candidate and it maybe their friend, brother or sister who is the Head of HR at JLR… you never know!

Be clear about what’s on offer. There is no point fluffing up a job so much that the candidate has a false illusion of what they are in for. I’ve heard horror stories of candidate interview feedback where the interviewer and candidate were both completely mislead; What’s the point? Who wins in this scenario? There are pros and cons to every job and what’s a negative to you, might not be important to the right candidate at all, so don’t break their hearts and hide information about a job content, salary or benefits. If you really feel the job is hard to ‘sell’, you need to be talking with your client and giving them the best advice to make that role the most appealing it can be – this is the approach of a true recruitment consultant.

If you are finding you are attracting the wrong type of candidates time and time again, it’s more likely to be you and not them. Take a look at your job adverts; Are you being specific enough? Are you being too brief? Are you giving too much of a salary range? Are you giving false hope?

My next blog will be on writing kick ass job adverts, how to stand out and attract the right candidates.