Employee retention and recruiting have become a primary differentiator from competitors. A company’s ability to retain its talents makes them perform at higher levels and lower employee turnover rates. Thus, saving more money for companies and time. 

HR departments have been increasing their efforts to recruit and retain the right employees. As a result, hiring the right person might get more challenging, but it may also be challenging to retain them when you make a good hire.  

According to a study, roughly 95% of companies admit that they make bad hires every year. Thus, these bad hires will lead to many other problems, such as losing time and money to make another hire. Furthermore, it might even impact the reputation of your company.  Well, to avoid this from happening, let’s find out the seven ways you can use to improve your recruiting skills and retain the top talents out there. 

7 ways to improve your recruiting abilities and retain top talents

1. Know your company values and goals 

If you want to be good at recruiting, you need to know what your company stands for and its goals. Moreover, before you hire, you need always to consider that candidates will pay vast attention to your company’s goals. 

Candidates will join a team where they seem themselves fit and can see a future in their personal and professional development careers. In other words, you can perceive recruiting as selling, and in this case, you are selling your company’s value propositions to potential talents who want to join your team. 

2. Offer employee reward programs

Your employees are the biggest asset in your company, so you must give them rewards. Moreover, this can be done through an employee rewards program which provides employees with personalized rewards after you’ve taken enough time to understand them. 

When people feel that they are part of their success, it directly affects how they think and increases their performance. If you think about it, employees will always do better when they feel motivated, and thus, this will reduce employee turnover rates. 

Some basic key features you get when using an employee rewards program are: 

• Multiple pre-selected rewards, subscription packages, and something for everyone 
• Easy to use marketplace for rewards and allows you to find the perfect match for your highest performers 
• Custom rewards and much more 

3. Use an Applicant Tracking System (ATS) 

Undoubtedly, you’ve most likely heard of an ATS. Considering the large number of applications that come in, the ATS can quickly scan which applications should proceed further based on how you set the requirements when scanning these applications. 

As a recruiter, you don’t have all the time in the world to scan through applications, and sometimes, it’s easy to make a mistake when you manually go through the many applications that need to be checked. 

Furthermore, ATS is used primarily for the following purposes: 

• Candidate sourcing: 
• Candidate management 
• Pre-screening candidates 
• Screening candidates 
• Employee onboarding 
• Optimizing the recruitment process
• Extending job offers 

4. Build a culture focused on your employees 

Employees will always value a work-life balance and appreciate the flexibility you can offer them. However, if you fail to do this, it might be time to make another one as soon as you make a new hire. 

Nearly 60% of employees claim that their organizations don’t show enough appreciation, which leads to an increased employee turnover rate in the long term. After all, employee retention firmly depends on how well you treat your employees and how your company culture is built around them. 

The traditional 9-5 mentality is dying out, and workers nowadays want to have the freedom to work from anywhere they want and love the job they are doing. Times have changed, so it’s time to change your company’s culture as well. 

5. Identify who will stay long-term 

You may be wondering how you will find out who will be staying with your candidates on Earth. Well, there’re many ways you can distinguish. Initially, you can try looking at the longevity of their previous jobs and what they have achieved. Alternatively, you can see this on their resume, or it’s best to ask them through an email or live interview. 

Moreover, it’s essential you look beyond a resume; however, anyone would perceive a candidate differently who changed five jobs in the past ten years over someone who changed twenty. There are even times when it isn’t the employer’s fault during the hiring process. It’s vital you choose someone who is self-motivated and wants the best for your business because not every candidate does have that mindset. 

Sometimes, there are even cases when candidates aren’t too informed or trained on being self-motivated. In this case, you can teach them while working for your company. But, at the end of the day, the best business is one that focuses on employee retention.

6. Focus on a small number of candidates 

Have you ever heard the phrase ‘talent is scarce’? Well, if you haven’t, you most likely know what we mean. Top talents aren’t easy to find and what makes them great is their ability to be unique from the rest. So if you have to go through over 1000 applications, only expect some of them to be unique from the rest. 

According to a survey conducted that included asking employers if they made the right hire or not, 74% of them said they didn’t! The main reason behind this idea was that employers thought they didn’t hire people who offered enough value for their company. 

So, what is the best thing you can do while in the screening phase? Well, find out what distinguishes one candidate from the other, see what they have written on their resume, how their resume looks, and how they stand out from the rest. Those who stand out achieve many things when joining your company. 

7. Ask questions 

In order to understand more about your candidates, you need to ask more questions. By questions, we mean those who will put them in situations as if they are already working with you. 

A business needs to seek to understand candidates, and thus, by asking questions, you are finding out more about your candidates. For example, you are interviewing ten potential candidates, and you can ask them practical questions to find out more about their problem-solving skills. 

Here are a few questions you can consider asking your candidates: 

• What made you interested in this job?
• What kind of challenges are you facing in your field as of now? 
• What are your long-term career goals?
• Are there any other activities you are participating in? 
• Are you curious about anything else regarding this job position? 

Before interviewing these candidates, try to practice active listening with your colleagues. Seek to understand more than judge. After all, candidates want to feel comfortable during an interview and not as if they will fail from the beginning of the interview. 

Take a notebook and even write down what candidates are saying; see their best words during the interview. Moreover, by doing this, you are setting yourself up to ask personalized questions and make the discussion better and thus, potentially recruiting new talent to your team! 

Additionally, you don’t want to ask too many questions and tire candidates out. Be straightforward, and don’t make the interview too long. The ideal time for a quality interview is anywhere between 45 minutes to one hour. 

Wrapping it up 

Well, that’s about it for this article. These were our seven ways to improve your recruiting abilities and retain new hires for the longest time possible. Hopefully, only by reading this article you’ve come up with new ideas on how to enhance your recruiting skills and increase employee retention. 

Take into account what your business can offer, whether financially or the way it operates,s and ensure that the person you are hiring is the right fit to keep in the long term. There’s nothing worse than having a high employee turnover rate and constantly dealing with new hires that don’t match your vision and values within the company or you don’t match theirs. 

Figure out what they want through the questions we provided you with. In turn, you’ll be able to know you did your best as a recruiter and benefit both sides. After all, you want the best for your candidates and your business in the long term.