It can be tricky, but still very possible. Here are four useful hiring strategies to help you find your next great employee:

1. Ask yourself what your current employees have in common

Find out what are the common traits among your current employees – backgrounds, skills, or personality traits. Also, ask them why they stay and what they would like to see you do in order to keep them.

Their answers can help you understand what can be the driving factors on why they chose to join your company and what motivates them to excel in the organization. Use this information to custom-fit your approach to hiring.

2. Cast a wider net

Sometimes, the available candidates don’t meet the demand, so you will need to cast a wider net to find the good ones. Go to LinkedIn and find the employees holding the same position with your competitor. Try to lure these top performers to work for your company.

Also, if you can’t find the skills you’re looking for in the immediate vicinity, try sourcing for talents in another state or even abroad. Consider using telecommuters, contractors, consultants, or even retired executives who would be open to part-time hours.

3. Build a talent pipeline

A talent database should be developed so it’s easy to identify potential candidates who can be continuously nurtured and approached when vacancies arise. A pipeline allows you to develop relationships with future talent; shorten the time to hire; improve the interview process; and minimize business disruption.

4. Use social recruiting

According to a survey conducted by the Society for Human Resource Management, 77 percent of companies use social media to identify candidates for positions. In fact, according to some experts, social media may be one of the best ways to engage with the highly coveted passive candidates, who are unlikely to have posted their resume on a job site.

One final tip. If you use employee referral software like Firstbird, you can easily merge your social recruitment with your existing referral program. Your employees can share vacancies across their social networks, providing you with quality candidates and personal referrals. Firstbird integrates with all social and professional networks, and each link is individualized so you know where your referrals come from.

The job market is continuously changing, so it only makes sense that the same recruiting strategies used in the past decades may no longer be useful today. Talent shortage pushes companies to update their recruitment strategies and get more creative with their hiring tactics. With these four recruitment tips, your company can reach great talents in no time.

Do you have other tips on how to improve recruitment? Share them in the comments below.
Looking to strengthen your recruitment with an employee referral program? Visit www.firstbird.com for a free demo.