Guest blog: How to attract the best talent for your team

Willem van Roosmalen, Co-founder, Homerun

Learn all about how modern and innovative companies are attracting talent.

Everyone agrees that talent is the number one asset that defines the success of a company. Attracting talent should, therefore, be a big priority. And yet, we still see a lot of generic job posts with descriptions that are bland and unattractive to talent. Many struggle to bring across what makes their company unique and a great place to work.

This is why we started Homerun, an easy-to-use hiring tool that helps companies to create customised job posts and beautiful career sites that authentically show what makes the company unique as an employer.

At Homerun we see that companies who successfully attract great talent, approach hiring like they approach marketing. They tell stories on their career site and in their jobs posts that connect and resonate with talent. They understand that as an employer, it's just as important to have a strong brand towards talent as it is to have one towards customers.

Attracting talent begins with your career site and job posts. Leading up to a new hire, these are steps you can take to make sure you're reaching the best talent for your team:

Step 1: Understand the role you're hiring for

The best way to attract talent is to start with the question "what is our ideal candidate looking for?" instead of asking "what are we looking for in a candidate?" Don't try to answer this question by speculating, but put your research hat on and give someone a call who is in the role you are hiring for.

Let's say you're hiring a designer. Talk to a designer to find out what someone in that role values in their work and working environment. Find out what makes them tick and be sure to get their input on the job post you create. Also, take some time to ask them where they hang out on the internet so you can start thinking about how to reach talent like them.

Not sure what to ask? Have a look at Homerun's ready-to-use role questionnaire.

Step 2: Make sure your job post and career site are up to snuff

You now know what sort of information is relevant to share about the role and what sort of values your ideal candidate cares about. Bring your job post and career site up to snuff with these simple tips:

Make an attractive job post

Your job post is the main place where you'll communicate everything that's relevant for your ideal candidate to know about the job. This should be more than a long list of bullet points of tasks and requirements. Create a rich and riveting job post:

• Include a clear and concise job description.
• Leave out "nice-to-haves", you'll attract more talent this way.
• Add the specific tools and tech they'll have access to.

For a full checklist on the do's and don'ts to keep in mind for your job post, have a look at our guide to attracting talent. Be sure to create each element of your job post in the most aesthetic way possible, with image galleries, a beautiful cover image and artful grids. A hiring tool like Homerun makes this easy with no code needed.

Your career site is the place where you’re marketing towards talent and not customers. It’s where you show the USPs of working at your company. If you don’t yet have a career site, start there! Be concrete and give examples. Chances are there are some pretty cool things about your company that can and should be communicated:

• Tell your company's history. People love an origin story.
• Make sure your company values shine through every bit of copy on the page.
• Be transparent about your hiring process to create clarity and a good candidate experience.
• Get concrete about what it's like to work at your company. What's office life really like?
• Show off your entire team and their expertise. Link to their LinkedIn and show team photos.
• Add the perks of working at your company. Anything from training budget to flexible work hours.

If you're not sure how to go about these steps have a look at some inspiring career sites at some of the frontrunners of hiring in the creative industry.

Step 3: Reach talent to attract talent

Merely publishing your career site and job post online is not enough to attract talent. Especially if your company hasn’t made a name for themselves yet. One day perhaps (we believe in you!), but for now, you’re going to need to take steps to reach talent if you want to attract talent:

Share in the most obvious places
This is about making use of the free channels your company has available. For example all of your social channels, online forums and groups, your personal network, company newsletter and more. Create a sharing checklist to follow every time you publish a job post. A checklist like this is great because you'd be surprised how often the obvious channels are forgotten. We get it, you have a lot on your mind, after all!

Promote your job
There are a few options on where you can promote your job post. Be sure to make your choice based on what you learned from doing step 1. Where is your ideal candidate located? Where do they hang out on the internet? Where would they look for a job?

We can make a distinction between places where you can reach active job seekers and places you can reach passive job seekers (people who are not looking for a job but can be convinced to make a switch):

Reach passive job seekers

• Social media advertising Facebook and Instagram are your go-to's for this. This is where you can get great candidates who are not looking for a job, to think about a job switch.
• Google Display Network‍ Reach candidates while they're browsing the internet with display advertising via Google.‍

Reach active job seekers

• Career Platforms LinkedIn and Indeed will give you access to an extensive audience of job seekers
• Niche job boards Promoting your job post on job boards for specific disciplines and industries is potentially extremely impactful if you're looking for someone with a specific expertise

To learn more about how to promote your job post without being an advertising pro have a look at Homerun's guide to attracting talent.

Find candidates yourself
This step is all about looking for candidates yourself and asking them to apply. This is called sourcing. We know sending cold messages on LinkedIn has a bad rap, but that has more to do with how it's done than the fact that it's done. If you find people who meet your requirements and you send them an authentic, personal and honest message that's tailored to them specifically, then you won't come off as irritating.

It's about quality over quantity here. Writing tailored messages might sound like a lot of work and potentially quite tedious and it is! It's also very important because this is going to help you reach extremely high-quality candidates. For tips and tricks for a great cold message have a look here.

You can keep it simple by starting with 3 messages a week. Or ask everyone in your team to message one candidate. You could also consider working with a freelancer specialized in sourcing to help you out with this step.

If you take even a few of these steps you’ll begin to see candidates rolling in! If you’re lacking the skills or tools to create a beautiful career page and job post, then give Homerun a try. Homerun helps companies attract talent and manage candidates in an easy-to-use applicant tracking system. Tailored to companies that care about brand, culture, and fit.

We’ve partnered with Revolut Business to offer a 3 month free trial for Homerun, instead of a 15 day free trial. With this you have access to all features and can hire for unlimited roles for 3 months.