Recruitment is often a difficult thing to navigate for businesses, whether large-scale conglomerates or smaller, newer businesses. The current employment landscape is a particularly unusual one to work within; unemployment is low, but not as a result of healthy employment; rather, fewer people are seeking work altogether, many due to long-term sickness.
Finding staff, then, might prove difficult even as an economic recession looms. Many businesses will find solace in the hiring of apprentices or interns for entry-level roles – but how can they be best attracted to new positions?
What’s Your USP?
As a business owner or manager, you might be more accustomed to asking this question of your business from a consumer or product perspective. USPs, or Unique Selling Points, are the factors that make your business stand out from the rest, and crucial to identify when it comes to targeting the right audience for sale and marketing.
The same approach can be taken when canvassing for applicants to apprenticeship or internship roles. By considering your business from the applicant’s perspective, as opposed to the consumer’s perspective, you can identify some of the specific things that might make you stand out amongst employers. These might include company culture, specific benefits, and perks, or even the nature of the work itself. If you struggle to identify such things, this might be an opportunity for you to re-evaluate before advertising.
Social Media
Of course, one of the key mechanisms for expanding reach when it comes to advertising for roles can be found in the form of social media. The importance of social media is well understood nowadays, with the adoption of platforms from Facebook to Instagram, TikTok, and beyond ubiquitous amongst both B2B and B2C businesses.
These platforms can be weaponised just as effectively for finding potential interns and apprentices as they can for finding new customers. With a carefully-designed social media campaign, you might be able to entice the right applicants to get in touch from within your target audience.
There is also LinkedIn, the social media platform geared towards professional development and networking. LinkedIn has its own dedicated jobs section, which can be used to find viable candidates with relative ease. Presence on LinkedIn is a useful thing to
Fairs and Events
Even as digital reach continues to grow as a primary method of discovery and communication amongst younger potential workers, there are still benefits to be found in more direct avenues of recruitment – namely, industry recruitment fairs and networking events.
Meaningful attendance at a recruitment fair or jobs exhibition, with a stand and roller banners to advertise your business and industry, can introduce local school leavers to your brand and the opportunities you can provide early on. Building a presence in exhibitions such as these can increase overall awareness amongst potential applicants – meaning that even if interest is low in the short term, you may be able to bank on long-term interest from students and workers with whom you have already networked.
Photo credits: Coworking London