5 ways to be an attractive employer

Attracting top talent is a challenge, especially if you are a start-up or small business without an established reputation. In a candidate driven market, employers need to ensure that what they’re offering meets candidates expectations, but also that they stand out in the market.

To help with this, Search have created a list of top tips on how to become an established employer that candidates will happily choose to come and work for. Here are five tips that can help you do that:

1. Provide interesting and stimulating work

Potential candidates are interested in performing challenging and stimulating tasks. More and more people look for jobs that inspire them to work harder. This means that the jobs you offer as an employer should be challenging, engaging and interesting. Invest time and effort in your job’s design and create jobs that appeal to potential candidates. A good suggestion is introducing job rotation schemes. These will help your employees develop new skills and will make their job interesting and challenging.

2. Recognise employees’ success and efforts

People want to feel appreciated in their jobs, so it’s vital to recognise your employees’ success and their efforts. This usually involves rewarding them for their dedication, loyalty and contribution to the company success. To achieve this, you should develop an objective way of assessing their performance and create an effective reward strategy. Benchmark the salaries and rewards you provide against the market averages and always pay close attention to the market’s developments.

Other rewards could include bonuses, free food and other perks. It is key to remember that your workers are key to the success of your company and you need to recognise and reward this to keep them.

3. Provide training and development opportunities

Most people look for an employer that will help them develop their skills and provide them with training opportunities to eventually enable them to progress up the career ladder. To become an attractive employer you need to show commitment to helping your staff grow and develop through a range of training opportunities. This could involve an annual skills assessment process and the development of an individual training plan for each employee.

4. Prioritise Corporate Social Responsibility and business ethics

For many candidates, working for a trustworthy, ethical and socially responsible company with a positive corporate culture is extremely important. You need to develop a Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) programme that outlines your values and principles. This will demonstrate that you have strong business ethics. Most employees believe that if a company has strong business ethics it is a good employer. You should also encourage employee activities such as recycling, fundraising and partnerships with charities that will demonstrate your commitment to being socially responsible.

5. Career advancement opportunities

Lack of career progression is one of the reasons employees leave a company. If you want to become an employer candidates look out for then you need to provide opportunities for career advancement within your business. If your employees can get better pay and a higher ranking job within your company they will be less likely to look for new job opportunities elsewhere.

Supporting staff through their career with your company can be achieved through the development of a formal internal recruitment program and clear progression paths. Advertise jobs internally to give employees the opportunity to apply and create a sense of potential for career progression. Conduct regular and fair performance evaluations and provide training for new skills. You can also introduce a mentoring program.

Become an attractive employer with Search

By following these five tips you can take the first steps towards becoming an employer that candidates would love to work for.

The next step is to advertise your available positions and ensure that the suitable candidates are aware of the opportunities you can offer. As an online employment agency featuring jobs across multiple specialisms, Search can help you with this process. We help thousands of people all over UK with their jobs search. Contact us and we can help you promote your employer brand and available positions.