The Best Way Employers Can Find The Right Person For A Specific Job

If you’re looking to fill a job opening, it’s best to be open-minded when it comes to using the recruitment tools available to you.

Employers often turn to recruitment sites in hopes of narrowing the search for top employees. But they can soon find their inbox flooded with unqualified candidates, and that they’re spending an inordinate amount of time separating the wheat from the chaff.

That’s when it’s time to consider niche recruiting, a more targeted way of finding the best talent available in your industry. You’ll no longer be casting a wide net in hopes of finding a few, highly-qualified candidates; instead, you’ll be zeroing in on individuals who specifically meet your needs.

The following easy steps can help you hire niche employees when, and where, you need them:

Strategically Advertise Your Job Opening

Consider taking the following steps when posting a job opening, such as posting on niche job boards, especially ones directed toward smaller pools of candidates. AngelList for example, focuses on people already working in the tech startup industry, while Handshake is geared toward college students and recent grads.

You may want to offer rewards to employees who are able to refer candidates you hire. If current employees are passionate about their industry, they may know other people who share the same passion. Tap into your network and share your job posting with others in your field. Also consider using recruitment tools on LinkedIn to further expand your network.

Tap Into Social Media

With social media, you can instantly tap into almost any niche and successfully target individuals who meet your specific criteria. LinkedIn allows you to search through millions of professional profiles while filtering for the specific type of employee you need. With Facebook, you can search for groups where your ideal candidate tends to hang out. Use Twitter to search by profession and then easily connect with candidates who fit your specifications.

Don’t Overlook The Importance Of Marketing

Awareness to get your job posting out there, and marketing it in an effective way is essential. Utilize pay-per-click ads, optimized web copy, referral and social media marketing, and SEO (search engine optimization). Think about how all of these customer-acquiring marketing strategies can also be used to hire your employees. Why not take the same effort you use to convince customers that you deserve their business, and apply it to convincing employees that they should work for your company?

Think Like A Job Seeker

Writing an effective job description – one that gets noticed by the right people – requires understanding the employee you’re trying to attract. Before you put pen to paper – or, most likely, hand to keyboard – consider the ideas, such as what might be important to a job seeker in a position or at a company, what does their life situation look like, and what are their goals.

When you have a better sense of your audience, you can tailor a more specific employment message. In addition, you can remove any incentives they don’t necessarily care about, and talk more about benefits that address their needs and interests.

Compose A Targeted Job Description

A well-crafted job advertisement can mean the difference between finding the right candidate and finding that you’ve wasted your time. A job description should speak directly to the type of potential employee you’re hoping to attract. Feel free to use jargon and language that speaks to job seekers in a particular niche; if they’re qualified, they’ll understand, if they’re unqualified, they won’t. In addition, think beyond listing just the basic requirements for the job; including any extra requirements in the job description will help weed out applicants who don’t have the full breadth of preferred qualifications.