How to Catch the Attention of Top Candidates in Today’s Job Market

As you’ve probably noticed, recruiting qualified candidates is extraordinarily difficult these days. The hard part used to be finding qualified candidates, but LinkedIn and other tools have largely taken care of this problem. Now, the bigger hurdle is getting people’s attention and getting them interested in a potential opportunity with your company. The vast majority of top performers are gainfully employed, well-paid, and on their way to a promotion in the next 12 months or so. They are also getting barraged from recruiters on a near-constant basis, so they have learned to tune them out. Star performers are focused on doing their jobs, not on your hiring needs or anyone else’s. And it’s not only that. In addition:

Pursuing a new job is a lot of work—resume updates, interview prep, contacting references, negotiating a new salary, and so forth.

Pursuing a new job entails a lot of risk—potentially angering people at the current company, trying something new that might not work out, being the last-hired person who’s the first to be let go in the event of a layoff, and so on.

Pursuing a new job entails a lot of stress—this one is self-explanatory.

So how do you cut through all of the noise, and all of these very valid concerns, and get them to take a look at your company? You need to get busy and get creative. Take a step back and think, objectively, about what makes your company special and different. Why would a superstar want to come work for you? What do you offer that few others do? Think about things like:

Assurances: No one wants to leave a great (or at least stable) job for a huge unknown. Maybe you can remove some of the perceived risk through specific guarantees.

Autonomy: If employees are given a lot of responsibility and discretion—two things star employees love—spell that out.

Career path: When could the new hire reasonably expect to move up? What would “success” look like?

Challenge: A top candidate is not going to jump ship to do basically the same work for someone else (you wouldn’t, either). What new challenges or creative problem-solving opportunities can you offer them?

Compensation: Be crystal clear about what the candidate can reasonably expect to earn in the first year on the job. “We’ll pay what we have to” isn’t good enough.

Culture: What’s yours like, and why do people enjoy working there?

Flexibility: These days, most jobs need to involve at least some remote and/or flex component in order to attract and keep top performers.

Management: What’s unique about how employees are managed and mentored at your company?

In all of your communications—in job descriptions and ads, and in emails and phone calls to candidates—you need to really focus on what’s attractive and different about your job, company, and management. This is a lot harder than simply posting your job on LinkedIn. But it’s a lot more effective, too.