Using Your Culture to Attract Top Talent

The most successful businesses are built on a foundation of great talent.

For your company to reach its goals, you have to attract the best people in your industry. To do this, your corporate culture and brand must play a fundamental role in your recruitment strategy. Here’s why.

Why Company Culture is Important for Attracting Talent

Company culture isn’t all smoke and mirrors; it’s a deliberately designed strategy that keeps your employees engaged with their workplace. If the perception of your brand doesn’t compare to reality, it’ll be impossible for you to retain quality talent immediately after they’re hired. 

Employer reviews on JobSage show that potential job seekers aren’t just concerned with money. Your employees want a work-life balance and an employer that fosters their growth.

88% of job seekers say a healthy work culture is vital for success, and 86% will avoid companies with a bad reputation. If you’re able to present your company as a great place to work and grow, you’ll attract top talent, but more importantly, keep them for years.

Employer Branding: Best Way to improve company culture

Nowadays, your employees are also interviewing you. Top candidates want to know if your company aligns with their values, so be sure to improve your culture to appeal to them.

1. Build Strong Employee Relationships

Leaders play a key role in shaping corporate culture and employee engagement. When leaders act as mentors, employees feel more successful and deeply connected to each other. Employers must recognize that all of their employees contribute to the success of the business and should be treated as such.

2. Open Up Transparency and Communication

Organizations must be transparent with their employees if they hope to create a more open workplace. Employees who are afraid to speak up are less likely to be creative and productive, but employee engagement and satisfaction skyrockets when everyone can be honest.

3. Help Employees Learn and Grow

Career growth is the main reason why employees stay for the long run. If there’s a ceiling, they will just work for someone else. Employers who have an invested interest in their employees are more likely to cross-train them. They’re also more likely to offer online learning portals. 

4. Encourage Employee Recognition

Your employees want to know they’re doing a great job, but if you only offer negative criticism, employee morale will suffer. Employers should schedule regular one-on-one interviews to discuss employee performance, and coworkers should be encouraged to support each other.

5. Give Teams the Authority They Deserve

Micromanagement actually does the opposite of what’s intended. It decreases initiative, increases burnout, tanks productivity, and destroys employee morale. Teams need guidance, but they should be left to complete their projects on their own unless they ask for help. 

How to Promote Your Culture to Attract Quality Hires

Upgrading your company culture is the first step. Now you need to use what you have to attract the best candidates. Here’s how you can promote your culture to find quality hires.

1. Upgrade Your “Work For Us” Section

Your candidates will start researching your website before contacting your business directly. To make a great first impression, you need to sharpen up your “Work For Us” section. Your career page isn’t just a portal for applicants to submit their resumes; it’s a platform to promote yourself.

To start, your “Work for Us” sections and career pages should feel genuine. It should paint a picture of what it would be like to work for you. Don’t over-exaggerate, and stick to the truth.

Be sure to include your mission statement and details about what candidates will gain from working with you. Demonstrate that you’re diverse and inclusive by creating an employee spotlight filled with varied coworkers. Prove to your candidates that you’re a great employer.

2. Leverage Social Media to Engage Your Audience

Today’s job seekers are looking for employers who are transparent and accessible. Modern candidates want access to your company’s information long before interacting with you. This makes social media the most effective way for others to know exactly what you’re about.

Although your candidates will look to your website first, that doesn’t mean they ignore social media. If employers can use it to scope out applicants, it’s only fair the employees can too. 

Candidates know that businesses will say anything to attract quality hires, so they’ll read between the lines. If you take pictures of workplace functions, birthday parties, team-building seminars, and other visually engaging day-in-the-life content, your prospects will believe you.

3. Give Your Employees a Voice

Your current employees would love to gush about how happy they are to work for you. A great employer is hard to find, and if you’re taking care of your employees, they’ll easily sing your praises. Not only that, but candidates want to learn more about the people in your company.

You can promote yourself, your brand, and your business by giving your employees a voice. Unless your candidate is joining the management team, a message from the CEO isn’t enough.

Employers can promote their company culture by sharing a video of why your employees love working for your company. You can also ask your employees to make content directly by organizing an Instagram takeover, writing a guest post, sharing tips on Twitter, among others.

4. Embed Your Culture Into Your Recruitment Process

A company culture overhaul won’t do you any good if you don’t integrate it into the hiring process. As mentioned, smart candidates are going to get off the ride the moment they notice cracks in your company culture. If you don’t deliver on a promise, they’ll leave disappointed.

Remember that company culture isn’t all about what you say; it’s about what you do. A candidate will know you’re not diverse if all they see are white men working for you.

Your candidates pay attention to how you treat them throughout the recruitment process, from the contact stage to the interview to onboarding. For example, if one of your values is punctuality, you can’t show up late to an interview unless you call ahead and apologize.

5. Set the Example After the Onboarding Process

Being consistent is the best way to impress your new hires and make them excited to work for you. Any value your company holds should be presented at all times. Employers should also be held to the same standard as employees if they want their coworkers to follow policy.

Your employees know you aren’t perfect, and they’re more than willing to forgive a missed birthday or broken promise, as long as you make it up to them by following through in the future.

At the same time, being transparent and honest about why your policies fell through can build long-lasting trust with your employees. Quality hires want to have a friendly relationship with their employers, and they want to feel respected. By being forthcoming, you establish that trust.

A Great Culture is Important for Talent Acquisition

Quality employees want to work for quality employers, and their way to prove you’re the best of the best is through company culture. However, company culture isn’t something you can just put on paper; it has to be present throughout your business if you plan on keeping your employees and attracting new talent.