5 ways to beat the talent drought and win at recruiting

Business Tips

Hub Australia

17th August 2022

As of May 2022, there were a total of 480,100 job vacancies recorded in Australia. That’s an increase of a staggering 111% from the vacancy rate in February 2020, before the pandemic. It’s clear that we’re in the middle of a talent drought. Many businesses are now in a mad scramble to fill vacancies and attract employees to their team.

If you’re responsible for recruiting, it can start to feel relentless when you’re getting little to no responses to job ads, can’t attract top talent, and feel pressure to fill essential roles. To help you win the war for talent, here are some top tips for making your recruiting experience easier.

1. Focus on internal promotions

The easiest and most cost-effective way to attract employees to a vacant position is to first look within your company. Promoting from within not only makes the recruitment process easier for you — saving time and money spent on advertising positions, conducting interviews, and onboarding new staff — it also helps employees feel valued and supported.

Given 33% of Gen Z workers—a generation who will soon make up 27% of the workforce—would switch jobs because there are not enough opportunities to advance, promoting is one of the best ways to keep top talent in your team.

2. Provide perks and benefits that people actually want

Long gone are the days of pizza parties and ping pong tables to keep employees (supposedly) happy. In our flexible-first world, employee needs and priorities have shifted. This means the perks and benefits organisations offer have to transform to adapt. This transformation will look different for each business and industry, but generally should involve:

some form of hybrid work policy and allowance for flexible working hours,
a strong consideration of the health and wellness of staff, and
monetory support for personal and professional development.

These are a few examples, and there are of course a trove of additional benefits you could be offering your team. The best way to work out what your team, and potential employees, would value as a perk is to send out a survey and provide ample opportunity for feedback after benefits are rolled out.

3. Reassess your commitment to impact

Modern job seekers want to work for employers that are committed to sustainability, with a hefty 67% of employees more willing to apply for jobs from environmentally sustainable companies.

While you may think you do enough in the space of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) and Environmental, Social, and Corporate Governance (ESG), chances are there’s a whole lot more you could be doing.

It’s not enough to donate to a few causes and add a diversity statement to your job listings. Organisations need to now go above and beyond in implementing purpose-driven initiatives that cover a range of impact areas to attract employees.

Again, this will look different across industries and workplace types, but could look like:

supporting employee volunteering
rolling out a CSR program and committee
implementing green initiatives like smart office design and monitoring electricity and water usage
committing to global certifications such as becoming carbon neutral and B Corp Certified

Above all else, it’s important to be authentic and transparent with your purpose-driven initiatives. Communicate your goals and progress to employees and key stakeholders.

4. Transform your hiring process

From the moment you start writing a job ad to when you’re onboarding a new employee, you need to make sure your hiring process is a positive and seamless process.

Effective recruitment begins with proper planning, which starts with identifying what your goals are, and the kind of employee and role that can help you achieve them.

When it comes to writing the job ad, keep things relevant. Tell people about the company, and don’t assume they know everything about what you do.

Make sure the job description accurately reflects the role you’re hiring for, and explain what you’re looking for in an ideal candidate.

When you’re at the screening and interviewing stage, have potential candidates undertake tasks related to the role they’re interviewing for and make sure you ask questions that are structured to help you get the information you’re after.

Finally, onboarding. With 69% of employees who have a positive onboarding experience more likely to remain with an employer for more than three years, onboarding is the critical last step that, for many employers, lets them down.

There are some simple solutions to ensuring your onboarding process runs smoothly, including:

automating your onboarding using people management software like Employment Hero, BambooHR, and monday.com
setting up a buddy system that allows new hires to connect with another member of the team, giving them access to knowledge and insights not typically found in a handbook
making new employees feel welcome by organising a team lunch
clearly communicating the onboarding schedule to new employees before they start

5. Meet potential employees where they are

Though traditional job listing platforms like Seek, Jora and Indeed are used by job seekers, there’s an untapped market waiting for you on every social platform, from TikTok to Twitter. Get creative with your job ads, leaning on help from your social media, marketing and content teams to help you attract employees. Try things like behind the scenes team videos on TikTok, boosted Instagram ads, and using employee testimonials for LinkedIn posts.