If you’re in any capacity or form involved in acquiring new people for a company, you’ll know the pain of getting in the right person for the right job.
WOBB is a Malaysian startup that is at the forefront of the battle to solve this pain, with their job search platform that is designed for millennials.
At a recent WOBB event, Talk Talent, it was revealed that the top challenge for HR and business leaders has always been this: finding quality talents.
It’s not that people aren’t hungry for a job or actively applying. There’s a huge pool of candidates out there desperately looking for a place.
But, according to Derek Toh, founder of WOBB an online job-hunting platform, one of the questions he often comes across is, “Why are we getting so many low quality or irrelevant candidates?”
He explained that one, it’s just that there are a lot of people who are desperate enough to send their résumé everywhere. Two, if low quality or irrelevant candidates are all who are applying to your company, you might have to examine the medium they’re using to reach you.
Traditionally, companies recruit through three methods: job portals, career fairs and head-hunters.
Job portals are cheap but it’s hard to control the quality of the candidates coming in.
For career fairs, if your main purpose is not to make your presence known to the public, not only are they expensive but also the audience that you reach is too varied and out of your control. Worst of all, they only last for a few days, severely limiting their reach. Not a great investment for a serious recruiter.
In terms of recruiting quality talent, head-hunters are the best bet, but they are exceedingly expensive. After all, someone has to sit on a phone to painstakingly call the right candidates one by one and entice them into the company.
Where Are The Quality People I Need?
According to LinkedIn’s research regarding “quality talents”, only about 30% are actively looking for jobs. These are the ones who get attracted through job portals and job fairs.
The other 70%? Generally, most of them are only recruited through head-hunters, as they are considered “passive” and aren’t scouring the job market for another place.
Odds are, the talents you wish to attract are still sitting at their desk in the company they’re currently at—somewhat contented but still very open to listening to offers.
In fact, according to statistics gathered by LinkedIn, 95% of the currently employed in Malaysia are still interested to hear about other job opportunities.
The number one thing they actually want to know about prospective companies? Surprise, it’s not the job scope. After all, like Valerie said, the really good ones you want to attract are already very clear on what their job scopes are and what their abilities are.
Instead, what they’re more interested in is company culture. After all, if the work they’re doing in both companies isn’t going to differ greatly, then the two things that they would want to know about are the work environment and the people who are already there.
So, what can you do to bring in the talent you need?
This leads back to WOBB and what they can do to help companies looking to hire top talents.
For companies asking, “Why aren’t the high quality or relevant candidates applying to us?”, these three points might just help.
1. Get The Best “Sales People” To Sell Your Company
Head-hunters sell companies, not jobs, when they’re recruiting on the line.
However, if you look at it from another perspective, why hire an outsider to talk about who you are when you already have a pool of people who know the ins-and-outs of your company intimately?
Your employees are the best people to talk about your company culture and environment. They are your “sales people”, which is why WOBB strategically leverages on video tours, employee interviews, and personal testimonials to “sell” a company to potential hires.
2. Increase Your Visibility In The Eyes Of Potential Candidates
According to Nora Manaf, the Group Chief Human Capital Officer of Maybank, using social media platforms are key to building an employer brand.
In fact, it’s a great way to communicate with the public and any potential talents.
After all, if they constantly see your brand around, they would be more likely to consider it when looking for a job, simply because of exposure and familiarity.
If your “sales people” (ie. employees) are also actively sharing about their lives in the company, even better. Outsiders get a glimpse of what working in your company is like, and might be attracted if they see something that they too want.
3. Build A Company Culture That Your Employees Can’t Stop Talking About
According to Animesh Mukherjee, Head of HR Center of Expertise at Digi, culture is not a choice. Their company is built around 4 core principles which are innovation, championing, learning and telling.
All their employees are given ample opportunity to grow, express their talents and even try out new ideas to see if they can be validated. For example, they have employee hackathons where teams are formed to see who can come up with the most brilliant idea and build it in a certain timeframe.
This culture of innovation helps Digi to keep apace with the swift-changing digital realm. Of course, it also allows for high employee satisfaction as their people feel as if their ideas have value and are taken into account by the company.
Talking about building a culture is easy, but decisive steps have to be made to actually carry it out. If done right, your employees will be bursting to talk about what you do on your social media platforms. Heck, they may even volunteer to fill those spaces.
At the end of the day, it’s clear that conventional methods of attracting talent are losing their effectiveness.
Companies should instead marshal the available resources to full effectiveness. With platforms like WOBB which are already set in place to reach the right individuals, it’s just a matter of using them right to hire the skilled candidates that you want.