Every company wants to hire the best candidates for their available positions. In a survey from MRNI Network, 90% of hiring managers agreed that the labor market is driven by candidate quality. Top applicants get more job offers than ever before, which makes it far more difficult for HR teams to compete for top talent.
Veterans come with some unique skills that benefit their employers, so you can get an edge by expanding your search to reach them. Here are some recruiting techniques to capture the attention of the best veteran candidates.
In the three to six weeks it typically takes to walk candidates through the interview process and make an offer, many of them are likely to drop out. They lose interest, get other offers, or change their minds about moving, and the market is on their side. Shorten your hiring process by:
Whether these steps work to shorten the process or not, regular communication will help to keep your best candidates interested. They’ll avoid assuming they didn’t get the job and moving on while you’re in a delay.
Yes, we know there are multiple job boards out there that candidates sign up for and check regularly, but that is probably not enough. Most veterans have had past experiences of being turned down for positions based on their inability to translate skills to civilian life, or other misconceptions about former service members. Every company looking for talent is posting on those job boards. Differentiate your company by using targeted job search options like We Hire Heroes, or Google’s job search option specifically aimed at veterans.
There’s more to attracting top talent than simply posting open positions. Recruitment marketing focuses on presenting the company in a light that appeals to the demographic you want to attract. This is a well-accepted strategy, with 51% of professionals currently employed admitting they’d change jobs if the right opportunity came along. Attract passive job seekers with methods like those of General Electric (GE), which used social media, content marketing, and other free outlets to reach college students and tech professionals.
The company:
GE also ran an ad campaign about Owen. He was a fictional GE new hire who struggled to get his friends to feel as excited as he was about his new job. They ran his story on Snapchat, Pinterest, and Twitter, and this increased visits to the careers section of GE’s website by 800%.
Collaborate with your marketing team to come up with ideas for recruiting potential employees. This will give you a better chance of reaching passive veteran job seekers who are interested in a new job, but not in looking at job boards.
To fill your open roles with top talent, you need to take an innovative approach to recruitment. Job seekers today are less patient and look for companies they want to work with. Make your recruitment process more targeted, make offers faster, and improve the time it takes from application to appointment. You’ll be successful in recruiting veterans and filling your company ranks with genuine, qualified individuals.
For companies interested in hiring veterans, it’s important to ensure your company's culture is veteran-friendly. Then you can confidently begin advertising jobs for veterans and recruiting the top talent your company deserves.