Shawnee Love   •  
December 20, 2012

It should be easy right? If you have a good place to work, wouldn’t everyone want to be there?

Even if it is a place most anyone would want to work, it is still a challenge amidst the onslaught of information to get your company and it’s job opportunities top of mind for candidates.  Here are a few relatively easy and low cost ways to attract candidates to your great company:

When you have a current job opening:

1. Leverage your Social Media presence.  Presumably, people who follow your company on Twitter and Linked In, and like you on Facebook already have an affinity for your organization.   Announce new job openings through those sites and you are targeting people who like you and want to help you out.  Promise a company hat or t-shirt for a productive referral and then follow up.
2. Tell employees you are hiring and ask them for referrals.  Whether you provide an employee referral bonus or consider working with a friend its own reward, happy employees will want their friends to share in their success.  The key is making sure employees know you are hiring and that you want them to refer candidates.  As such, it isn’t good enough to simply put the job opening on your intranet or bulletin board.  You must create a call to action that engages employees in helping you hire.
3. Don’t forget the status quo.  People who have seen your job ads in the past will look for your postings in the same place.
4. Run a contest. Ask employees to make suggestions for how best to find your next hire.

You should also be thinking about how to attract candidates so you have some “in your back pocket” when you need them.  Here are 6 ways to get a jump on the recruiting process:

1. Continually collect and review applications even if you don’t have any jobs open.  These applicants are indicating they think your company is somewhere they might like to work.  If they look like a strong candidate, let them know you are interested and will call them back when you have a job opening.
2. Try to get recognized as an official Best Place to Work.  It takes a lot of leg work (i.e., time costs are high), but you learn a lot in the process and those official lists are well respected by candidates.  Additionally, the people behind the lists ensure that if you are selected, you get tons of free press, opportunities to promote your business and your job openings, and the ability to use the Best Employer/ Best Place to Work Stamp which is an advertisement in itself.
3. Consider an open house.  Again it involves a lot of leg work and planning, but inviting friends and family of your employees and/or the community in general will set your company apart from the herd. If you do this, be sure to show off why people like to work for you.
4. Use your website to promote the company as a great place to work. Some of the best companies to work for, have a huge section of their website directed towards future employees.  You will not only see information about the team, the benefits and perks, and the jobs, but these companies also explain what types or why employees would enjoy working there, what it is like to work there, what to expect if hired, and so on.  Want to see a few examples of the ways great companies showcase their greatness?  Check out Google, Ernst & Young, and Kimberly Clark to see what I am talking about and then take what you learned from them to figure out what content you want to add to your website.
5. Visit schools that train people who might work for you one day. Talk up your company to them and hope your seeding takes root.
6. Give out company swag to your employees that says you are a great place to work. If it is written, it must be true right?

What do you do to ensure the world knows about your great company?