How To Sell Your Carrier To Top Talent: 3 Smart Decisions Designed to Showcase Your Values And 2 Bonuses to Help Close the Deal

How To Sell Your Carrier To Top Talent: 3 Smart Decisions Designed to Showcase Your Values And 2 Bonuses to Help Close the Deal

Avatar photo Jeff Gipson | March 9, 2017

Competition in today’s job market isn’t only a concern for job seekers but for companies trying to attract top talent as well. Every interview is a two-way street where both company and candidate are looking for the best fit.

Countless online directories provide compensation estimates by job description in your area, lending potential hires valuable insight to income potential. That leaves your company’s culture and values as key differentiators.

You typically get three chances to present your values to each prospect, so here are the biggest things to check for with each opportunity, plus a couple of helpful hints that can take your hiring game one step further.

For the Listing: Focus on Freedom and Growth Benefits

When most people look at a large employer, they foresee a future that involves navigating internal politics and climbing a ladder that is complex but has plenty of rungs. You can use this to your benefit by noting ways your organization overcomes presuppositions, from flexible placements to progressive benefit options.

Sharing these cultural benefits in your job listing and description gives the impression to prospects that you are a company who is willing to provide the freedoms that studies from Gallup, Monster and others say are important.

On the Web: Your Site Should Cater to Customers and Candidates

You’ve likely come across company websites that showcase their corporate responsibility, volunteer work, environmental-friendliness and other positive traits outside of their normal operations. All of these efforts are designed to improve the company’s standing in the eyes of both customers and potential employees.

Today’s job seekers want to know that a company shares their values and culture. Your website is the launching pad from which this connection is made. This information should also be provided on your “Careers” page and the landing pages you provide in your job descriptions out on the Web.

Don’t be shy about the work you’ve done. If you’ve made a commitment to hiring more veterans, given to a specific charity, conducted food drives or other actions, share these. Go beyond just publishing your values and showcase them with company news and events to make your website attractive to the people who may want to work for you.

In the Room: Discuss Your Company Philosophy

Candidates often ask “what do you like about working here?” because they want to know that your environment is enjoyable. You can get ahead of this question and deliver all that information by discussing what you, as an individual, enjoy about your company and how it relates to the overall company philosophy.

Stick to tangibles such as the way that the company treats you and how easy it is to collaborate and solve problems, if there’s a favorite community service activity in which you’re engaged, speak to it and how it adds to your company’s culture and values.

Gallup has included “I have a best friend at work” in its core list of dimensions that describe great workgroups since the 1990s because people who agree with the sentiment report much higher levels of receiving and giving praise, making commitments to quality and feeling like their job is important. If you’ve made friends at work, it can be a positive thing to mention.

Bonus 1: Ditch Stock Photos for Real Photos

People respond very positively to images on a career page, especially when they’re interesting photos. But, you get the biggest bang for your buck when you create your own. Capture people and places as they naturally happen and visitors are more likely to view you as human and want to engage with your company and your job forms.

Bonus 2: Get an Added Boost From a Leading Recruiter

The biggest danger in these elements is the “oversell.” You need a blend of company culture, values, work, and staff to land the right candidates. The problem is that the best combination of these elements differs for each candidate.

Recruiters can help you understand what a person values most because we’re able to ask before your meeting, helping you prepare and ensuring you address what’s most important to them.

After the interview, we can also provide additional information to your preferred candidates, positioning you as better than the competition in areas that are important to the candidate as well as following up with benefits or discussing how you’ve followed up on interview promises with examples of career advancement, company growth and more.

Candidates typically see recruiters as impartial representatives, so it adds an extra value and weight when we discuss your company’s benefits and how they fit with the candidate’s goals. It’s a boost you can only get from a leading recruiter who understands you, your market and the people you want to hire.

When you’re ready to give your company the best opportunity possible in finding the right candidate to fit your skills needs and culture, contact The James Allen Companies, Inc. or call me directly at (573) 334-3688.

About the Author

Avatar photo
Jeff Gipson
Jeff Gipson Sr. is a veteran of the staffing industry, with more than 30 years of experience. He got his start working for an international staffing organization where he focused on information technology placements across the country. In July 1992, Jeff continued his staffing career with a St. Louis based information technology staffing company. There, he was strategically involved in launching the organization’s first branch office — and subsequently three additional branch offices over the next several years. In July 2000 Jeff made another move — this time to launch his own staffing company, continuing his IT focus. In 2003 the organization was reinvented. Relying on his earlier sales career in the insurance industry, the company changed course and began building the firm around the insurance industry. The company continues to put all their energy in the insurance sector filling positions of all titles across the country. Jeff and his wife Carolyn have been married since 1980. They have three children and seven grandchildren.
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