Are you a Business Hiring in a Competitive Market?

While the Pandemic has affected the livelihood of millions and millions of people, there are some industries where there continues to be a shortage of candidates, mostly in white collar jobs in fields such as healthcare and pharmaceuticals, tech and gaming, and related fields. For example, GlaxkoSmithKline had over 2,000 openings this summer.

Attracting candidates is a marketing effort in and of itself, and companies use their website, LinkedIn, and other platforms to not only post jobs, but create a brand/image that positions the company to be attractive to candidates. Creating the right first impression with the candidate is critical. But what may not be as obvious is what companies can be doing to improve their chances of landing the candidates they want.

In many ways attracting and hiring candidates (in a competitive market) has parallels to selling. You want a large number of leads, which will eventually shrink down to candidates that actually join (buy). Your process for supporting the candidates’ “buyers journey” should include understanding what is important to them, and providing materials, processes, and interactions with people that are part of the process. While your business likely uses LinkedIn as a platform to help attract and source candidates, the candidates are also using LinkedIn to research you and your company.

This is one of the reasons businesses should be making investments in helping their employees with improving their LinkedIn profiles. Savvy candidates will utilize LinkedIn to research potential hiring managers, people who they may know who either work at the companies they’re researching or are connected to someone there, and so on. As a business, you want your employees’ LinkedIn profiles to stand out and amplify the best of those employees, which in turn is a reflection on the company. And part of that equation is making sure those employees have professionally done, high quality headshots.

Imagine you’re a candidate and researching potential companies you’ve either applied to or considering applying to. You’ve started researching employees with certain titles or job functions and come across LinkedIn profiles of those people. Now imagine the first group of images represent the LinkedIn profiles of employees of Company A, and the second group of images represent Company B – which group creates the better first impression of a successful company?

The second group of images don’t look professional, nor do they convey the same brand. The first group images look professional, yet don’t look stoic or posed/forced – they’re clearly individuals, yet there is a consistency that conveys a “togetherness” or power. This is more than the fact that the lighting is better and the background is consistent – the energy, the feeling/impression is more consistent, positive.

In a competitive hiring environment you need to put your best foot forward to gain that competitive advantage. Think of marketing to potential candidates in a similar way you market to your customers – with consistent branding across all potential areas where those candidates may interact with your business and employees.