The talent shortage is real. While more Baby Boomers are retiring, younger workers lack the job skills needed to replace them or lack the interest to pursue blue-collar work, leading to a huge decline in talent. The labor market for tough jobs is abundant, but where’s the talent to fill them?
There’s good news: The talent is out there—you just need to capture their attention with an offer they can’t refuse. To outpace the competition and win the war for talent, you need to take a different approach to recruitment marketing. Think about it: Your ideal job candidates probably aren’t using traditional methods to find work like job seekers in other industries. You need to fine-tune your strategy to keep up with today’s competitive recruitment landscape, and that means taking a modern approach to recruitment marketing.
Your ideal candidates are searching for new opportunities. Now, it’s your turn to capture their attention with a standout marketing strategy and unrivaled candidate experience to lock them in. So, what are you waiting for? Here’s everything you need to know to find quality candidates, drive more applications, and build your dream team.
Over the past few years, you’ve probably noticed a major decline in active job seekers—and you’re far from alone. In 2018, 80 percent of construction firms had a hard time filling open job positions. At the same time, 62 percent of firms struggled to fill important skilled trade positions in 2016.
So, where are the workers going? Let’s get one thing straight: The widespread talent shortage isn’t just related to the nation’s record-low unemployment rate. As older workers start to retire and more younger people pursue four-year degrees, the job market is left with fewer blue-collar workers than ever before.
Beyond the shrinking workforce, contractors face other unique challenges in finding skilled trade talent. More than early retirement and the lingering health impacts of COVID-19, worker sentiment is transforming the recruitment landscape. The pandemic didn’t just shed light on the challenges of working trade jobs in a high-risk environment. It also impacted the workforce, along with the formula for successful recruitment marketing, as we know it.
What does that mean for your business? If you want to win the war for talent, you can’t rely on your tried-and-true recruitment strategy to find the right people. It’s time to stop wasting valuable recruitment resources, posting on the wrong job boards, and sending the wrong message. You need to run toward the fire with a fresh approach to recruitment, and that means rethinking your current strategy to attract, hire, and retain skilled trade talent.
Maybe you’re struggling to find qualified candidates for your open positions, or you just can’t seem to retain your best hires. Between lost productivity, high churn rates, and low employee engagement, you’re barely keeping enough workers on the payroll to meet your daily needs. You can’t afford to wait around for new candidates to hit the Apply button anymore. To grow your company, you need to take a proactive approach to hiring.
But where do you start? As the recruitment landscape evolves to meet the demands of modern candidates, you need to reconsider how you’ll retain your blue-collar workers and hire new ones. While there’s no cookie-cutter formula to successful talent acquisition, there are a few things you can do to streamline your recruitment strategy.
Chances are, your ideal job candidates aren’t scrolling through LinkedIn to find a new position. Instead, they’re checking out industry-specific job boards to simplify their search.
To reduce the number of irrelevant applications you receive, avoid posting on mainstream job boards like Indeed and LinkedIn. In most cases, blue-collar industries have dedicated job boards that trade workers use to keep up with industry news, local job opportunities, and more. This way, you’ll be able to target your top picks instead of scrolling through hundreds of job applications that don’t meet your qualifications.
For example, if you’re hiring construction workers, try advertising on construction job boards like ConstructionJobs. If you’re not sure where to start, consider surveying your current employees about job boards they used during their search. Or, if you want to take a more strategic approach, take the time to research where your competitors are marketing their jobs online.
If social media marketing isn’t a part of your recruitment strategy, here’s your sign to switch things up. Social media is a powerful tool to reach passive candidates, get in front of active job seekers, and build awareness of your employer brand. And with the right strategy, you’ll be able to save valuable time, money, and resources recruiting your dream candidates.
According to a 2021 study by CareerArc, 92 percent of employers are already using social media to source talent. Social media recruiting outranks job ads, employee referrals, and even job boards—and your competitors are probably already using social media to attract your top picks.
How can social media upgrade your recruitment strategy? It’s simple: Social media broadens your reach and connects you to more candidates. For example, when you market your employer brand on Facebook, you’ll get in front of passive candidates who aren’t actively looking for work. Traditional recruiting strategies and job boards won’t reach these potential candidates, but they make up 70 percent of the global workforce.
At the same time, you can use social media to transform your employer brand. You can leverage different platforms to share employee-generated content, highlight your benefits, and show prospective job candidates what it’s really like to work for your company. Ultimately, your main goal is to drive awareness and pique your candidates’ interest with an irresistible offer—and social media is the perfect tool for the job.
Your company culture plays a major role in your recruitment strategy. And if you’re not taking care of your current employees, you’re going to have a hard time hiring new ones.
How can you cultivate a positive company culture? Start by recognizing and acknowledging your employees’ achievements. Take the time to reward your team for going above and beyond, whether you’re posting about their hard work on social media or incentivizing them with bonuses. At the end of the day, your workers deserve to feel appreciated, respected, and valued. They want feedback about their performance, especially if they’re interested in advancing within your company.
When you recognize your employees’ success on a regular basis, you’ll help boost employee morale and make the work feel more rewarding to them. In turn, recognition and respect can help you build long-term relationships with your best workers—all while cultivating a positive, productive work environment.
Sure, a competitive salary can help you attract prospective candidates, but your benefits shouldn’t end there. Instead of cluttering your job descriptions with long bullet-point lists of traditional perks, take a different approach to recruitment marketing with unique benefits tailored to your ideal candidates.
For example, if you’re targeting single parents with job ads, highlight your childcare benefits and flexible paid time off (PTO) policy. Depending on your ideal job candidate, other perks might include longer lunch hours, improvements to break areas, and posting weekly schedules in advance. With so many companies competing for skilled workers, you need to think beyond traditional benefits to show prospective candidates why you’re worth working for.
Not sure where to start? Take a step back and empathize with your current employees. What kind of challenges do they face? How could you improve their quality of life? Whether you’re offering public transportation subsidies or staggering start times, making simple changes to your company policies can make a world of difference for your employees and prospective job candidates.
When you’re ready to take your recruitment strategy to the next level, video marketing can be your MVP. According to 2022 statistics, video is one of the most important components of recruitment marketing: 80 percent of talent pros agree that video marketing boosts the number of job applications, while 78 percent agree that videos improve application quality.
Before they apply with your company, your prospective candidates want all the information they can find—from insight into their future team to employee testimonials. When you answer all their questions with attention-grabbing video content, you’ll take one step closer to converting them into new hires.
In a nutshell, recruitment videos are short videos that shed light on your company’s values, employees, benefits, and the value you bring to prospective candidates. Your goal is to set your company apart, give prospective candidates a glimpse behind the curtain, and answer their questions while reinforcing your employer brand.
The good news? Recruitment videos don’t have to consume all of your precious time, money, and resources. When you partner with a professional video production team, you can amplify your marketing strategy with high-end videos and carefully crafted stories that drive your top picks to apply.
In today’s fierce talent market, you need a modern recruitment strategy to hire the right people. Whether you’re searching for skilled construction workers, roofers, or HVAC techs, you can’t afford to sit back and let your competition steal your best workers.
Ready to take a proactive approach to recruitment? At Company 119, we’re here to help simplify recruitment marketing for your business. Give us a call to fuel your company with qualified trade talent.
