5 Tips for Recruiting the Best Candidates to Your Online Company

In this article, we’re going to discuss recruitment. We’ve found that it’s a consistent pain point across our industry, and that many of our clients are always on the lookout for how to improve their recruitment procedures. This is not just an issue that’s limited to the online brokerage business. You’ll find that recruitment is a constant headache for organisations, especially in the modern world where very few of us are looking for that old cliché of a “job for life.” So, read on for the top 5 things you can do right now to recruit the best workforce to your company!

1. Start In-house
It sounds so simple, but there’s a lot more to this point than meets the eye. In the past half-century or so, companies have gone from filling around 90% of their vacancies through internal promotions and lateral assignments to around 30%. Now, there’s nothing wrong with looking further afield for the best candidates. However, if you’re getting your recruitment right to begin with, then the best candidates probably already work for you.

Whether it be a promotion or a lateral move, picking from the best and brightest on your payroll means that existing staff members are given every opportunity for career improvement. This engenders a greater sense of loyalty within your organisation and leads to new positions being filled by individuals who are already well-versed in your company’s culture. Providing these opportunities in-house also means that you can bring new staff in to fill the entry-level positions being vacated by existing staff members who are moving up (or sideways).

2. Get your incentives right
As we’ll see in the next point below, a company that treats its employees well is an incredibly hard secret to keep. Word gets around, especially when it comes to pay and employee benefits. We’re not suggesting that you should spoil your people, but an above average salary scheme and attractive benefits package can often be all you need to get every future candidate thinking about your brand as the top of the mountain. As with most things in life, you really do get what you pay for.

If your company is not in a position to offer the kinds of salaries that your biggest competitors do, you can still go a long way towards offering benefits that make your company an attractive place to work. People value workplace flexibility now more than ever, so the opportunity to make up their hours in a manner that suits them, perhaps even working some of those hours from home, can be very attractive for some candidates. Also, consider offering “pick ‘n mix” style benefits packages, where different members can choose different schemes, this can also make your benefits more attractive to different demographics, or even couples.

3. Your employees are your best evangelists
If we take the previous two points as a given, then a happy workforce with constant opportunities for betterment and a competitive remuneration package isn’t just a loyal workforce, it’s also one that will sing your praises to the outside world. This is how certain firms develop reputations as being the places to work for in a given industry. If you’re offering existing staff members the opportunity to apply for positions before they’re made public, then you should also encourage and incentivise them to refer people who they think may be suitable for new roles. As we mentioned in our last article on how to keep your best sales/retention staff, most employees will choose a work environment with colleagues they get along with over a higher salary elsewhere, so give them every opportunity to build it for themselves!

4. Use your website for more than just marketing
Your online real estate isn’t just there to attract clients to your services. You’d be surprised how many job seekers go directly to the company websites of the brands they value most when looking for career opportunities. So, if you haven’t already, make sure you dedicate a section of your website to looking behind the scenes at your employees and their daily experience of working for your company. Tie this in to any CSR drives your people are involved in and make sure you document and publicise the extracurricular activities that your people get up to as a team away from the office.

5. Develop relationships with local universities
Finally, to make all of the above feasible you must constantly feed your organisation with new talent at the entry-level, and then gradually allow them to move up or across to other departments as they become more embedded in your company’s culture. A good way to do this is to focus on building strong relationships with local universities. This will afford you a steady stream of fresh graduates who are eager to jump into the workplace and who can form the foundation of the other suggestions we’ve made throughout this article.

For more information on this or any of the other articles on this blog, as well as to suggest future topics, please don’t hesitate to contact us.