This ain't your mom's recruiting market anymore. A new era in candidate sourcing means new methods of talent acquisition are needed.

Woefully unprepared. 

Those are the words countless media pundits used to describe the world's response to a global pandemic 2 years ago.

And while today we are at the tail end of its effects, most of us in charge of hiring for our companies still haven't figured out what to do there. Most of us are still woefully unprepared for the years to come.

That's because a large chunk of the workforce simply isn't working anymore. Many women and some men have exited the workforce to take care of their children due to lack of childcare available. Many baby boomers have left the workforce and don't intend to come back. 

A lot of employers are stuck thinking that things are going to go back to normal soon. They bury their heads in the sand hoping that their problems will go away. Unfortunately, they will not. We know this because there are 10 million less people in generation y then there are in the baby boomer generation. That means there won't be enough people to replace all the baby boomers, not to mention all the other people who have exited the workforce, for at least a decade or more in my estimation. 

Businesses who want to take their recruiting seriously need to adapt to the new market that we find ourselves in. And that market is an employee market. No longer do employers have the pick of who they want by just posting a job online. Employers now have to think creatively about how to sell the jobs, just like they have to sell their products or services.

For those companies who are willing to grab the bull by the horn and start selling their jobs, here’s a strategy we recommend. 

1) Understand your employees

Before you can sell something you need to understand the problems it’s  solving for your customer. This applies to jobs as well. A lot of employers like to sell their jobs based on the pay and benefits alone. But selling on pay is a race to the bottom. At some point, you hit your cap and there's nothing more you can do to attract new candidates.

That's why we recommend  first trying to understand what your employees like about working there beyond just the pay. Once you have enough of this information from employee surveys or interviews, you will have the material you need to craft a really good employer value proposition.

2) Create an Employer Value Proposition

An employer value proposition is simply a pitch for why somebody should work for you. If you skip this step, your message to prospective employees will be inconsistent and will inevitably fall back into relying on just pay and benefits, which you are trying to avoid.

Using the information you got from your research in step one, your employer value proposition should  have the following structure:

• It should address the main problem or pain point that your employees have in their life before they come to work for you.
• It should make a promise for how you solve that problem.
• It should have at least three compelling reasons that make the promise believable. 

An example of this is a manufacturer who does research on their employee base and discovers that a lot of them come from retail or fast food. By choosing to work for this employer, they know their employees moved from a chaotic work schedule and low wages to a job where they had a steady schedule and good wages without even having to go to college. They can then build their reputation around this problem they solve for employees. 

3) Advertise your jobs beyond Indeed

Now that you understand your employees and you’ve created an employee value proposition, it's time to advertise. We're not just talking about Indeed though. So many employers don't realize that there are many tools to advertise their jobs beyond the job boards. These include social media, Google Ads, Google Jobs, and more. Although the mediums for many of these platforms will be different, such as photo, copy, or video, the message that they will all have in common is to share your employer value proposition over and over. Over time, you will find that you will start attracting employees who want what you have to offer regardless of whether you have the best wages. 

By using this simple marketing strategy, your company will enjoy a more consistent stream of applications and better quality of applicants to choose from. If your HR team or marketing team don't have the capacity  or expertise to launch a campaign like this, consider working with a marketing agency who specializes in recruitment marketing or employer branding. I happen to know a good one *hint hint*.

If you're just relying on job boards and advertising your pay to find candidates, you will fall behind in the race for the best employees and your struggles to keep up with customer demand will continue. Implement the basic marketing strategy I’ve shared with you to take your recruiting to the next level.