Bringing in the right staff is a crucial part of any successful business and one that businesses across the UK invest millions of pounds in each year. Whilst some get it right, others may struggle to get the right people in. There are a combination of factors that cause this from a competitive job market and another business providing a better offer, to a weak pool of talent and not being completely sure what skills you need to bolster your current team.
Here are 5 reasons why you may be struggling to recruit and ways to resolve them:
Cost
One of the biggest challenges when it comes to recruitment is the cost, not only financially but also the time cost associated with the process of finding and onboarding new staff.
There are of course ways to ensure costs remain low, using your internal team to write the application, look through CVs, conduct interviews and onboard is cheaper but takes staff away from their usual role and commitments.
On the flip side, you can rely on using recruiters to manage the process for you however with most recruiters charging a few of 15% of the salary of the new hire, this can be an extremely expensive process.
One way to resolve this is to use outside expertise at a more affordable rate. minc marketing is up to 50% cheaper than traditional recruiters and allow you to use their services as and when you need them. Find out more here:
Competition
To say that the power is with the applicant in the modern working world is an understatement. With the world recovering after the pandemic, businesses who may have reduced their workforce are hiring again as are your competitors.
With day-to-day prices increasing you need to make sure your proposed salary remains competitive with the industry average.
Greater demands
With a greater focus on wellbeing and work-life balance, people’s expectations are higher, particularly the expectations of the younger generation. You need to think about what you can offer to show you put your people first and help employees to live a happy and fulfilled lifestyle.
Everything from holiday allowance and maternity leave to private healthcare and enhanced pension contribution will be put under the microscope and if you don’t stack up against other businesses you will find yourself missing out on available talent.
Poor promotion
In terms of getting your vacancy out there to the masses, this can have a significant impact on how many applicants you get. Of course, there are the main places to list vacancies such as LinkedIn, Indeed, Total Jobs and more, but how do you make your listing stand out.
You can often pay to have your vacancy appear higher on lists or be recommended to relevant applicants, both of which are worth doing, particularly if you are based in a large city with lots of similar positions available.
In the same way you would judge a CV by how it’s written and whether all the information is included, applicants will judge your job listing in the same way. Ensuring key details such as salary, working hours, requirements and responsibility are included will save you from receiving applications from people with different expectations than your business. It could be worth having the vacancy written by someone from a marketing background to maximise impact and make the role sound as attractive as possible.
Location limitations
After 2 years of home and flexible working for many, the expectation in 2022 is that businesses have a working from home policy in place. Of course, this is not possible for every role but where possible you should advertise your WFH stance and make this clear in your application.
Long gone are the days of having to hire people in a fixed location. Why limit yourself to the talent available by setting geographical boundaries that other businesses aren’t setting.