After a wild candidate-driven labor market in 2022, it seems that the pendulum has shifted back towards an employer-driven market.
Well, not quite.
Unemployment rates are still historically low and candidates are on the move in active sectors like manufacturing, supply chain and healthcare, along with the ongoing on-premise vs hybrid/remote dynamic, hiring companies still need to be prudent with their prospecting practices as they interview, qualify and make offers to potential employees.
Employee retention remains critical as a significant number of gainfully employed people, especially on LinkedIn, are pursuing new opportunities and listed as “Open To Work”.
More than ever, hiring companies should be doing all they can to ensure that anybody in a hiring authority position including direct hiring managers, parallel stakeholders, supporting teams and HR – treat their communications, scheduling, processes and engagement with the utmost care, just as they would a prospective customer or buyer of their product or service.
Based on what we’re hearing from candidates in today’s market, here are suggestions to solidify your hiring and retention processes.
- Set a realistic compensation budget based on market conditions for each position. Bringing in a candidate at a salary below market will come back to haunt you when they later leave for a better offer.
- Treat candidates as equals, with the utmost respect. Just as you interview candidates, candidates are interviewing you.
- Commit to an expeditious timeframe from beginning to end, so you do not lose a candidate due to another offer or loss of interest.
- Carefully consider how many managers really need to interview the candidates.
- Pay special attention to employees’ comments on Glassdoor and other social media. Candidates read those reviews and respond accordingly.
From compensation to no-cost ideas, build strategy to retain your most valuable employees. It’s probably a lot cheaper to keep them than to replace them.
Companies should always have a serious, concerted approach to their talent strategy and need to show they care.
The brands that succeed and consistently gain and retain great talent are the ones that don’t struggle in the market and are competitive.
This starts by treating employees and prospective employees like customers from the beginning to end.
With care.