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Culture Shift: Stand out to attract better talent

By Galen Emanuele

April 17, 2023

If your company is hiring right now, you need to look at how you’re writing your job listings.

Why? Because there is a war for talent out here. If you aren’t standing out amongst other companies, then you’re getting lost in the sea of job postings.

This is just one aspect of talent acquisition, but it’s really critical for attracting candidates to apply and fill your open roles.

Simply put: if you want to attract people, you’ve got to stand out.

Don’t write the same old boring job postings that read like a medical textbook. Show some personality and set yourself apart. Have the job actually sound like one someone would want, and at a company that someone would actually want to work for.

Make job listings sound like they were written by an actual human.

These days, so many postings sound soulless and like a compliance manual with no human touch to them. Be fun. Be real and authentic. Talk about your culture, and be transparent about the salary and benefits. The point is to make someone interested enough that they’re excited to apply.

Obviously, don’t lie. But make it your goal to make a damn good impression.

The tables have turned when it comes to hiring.

There’s been a paradigm shift when it comes to hiring. Gone are the days where companies can post any old job listing and have droves of candidates coming in begging for the job and doing everything they can to make a great impression on the company. Companies need to be selling themselves just as hard these days.

You have to make a fantastic impression on candidates,
you can’t keep doing things the way you always have.

And clean up your application process.

Take a hard look at your application and interview processes and make sure they are smooth and candidate-centric.

For example, and for the love of all that is good in the universe, do not make people enter all the info they already have included in their resumes into some secondary application form. There’s no faster, easier way to show that you don’t care about their time or applicant experience than having them manually type out every single thing from their resume into some additional form.

If you’re going to ask for a resume, be cautious about what you have them enter manually. Re-entering their entire resume causes a lot of candidates to just stop applying and immediately move on.

Be thoughtful and intentional about what it feels like to apply and interview for your company, starting from reading the job posting.

The game has changed, have you?

Candidates aren’t knocking down your door begging for jobs. Open positions are harder to fill than they have been for a long, long time. How are you going to stand out amongst the other 30 companies that a candidate is applying to?

If you are still hiring the same way that you were five, 10 or 15 years ago, you are missing a boat that will not come back for you. Try harder, make an excellent first impression. Show them right out of the gate that you care about their experience, be different, and inspire them.

Change things up or lose out.

Galen Emanuele is a speaker and trainer on business leadership and team culture based out of Portland, Ore. Every week, Emanuele produces a video and blog post highlighting vital conversations, building skill sets and showing teams how to drive exceptional culture and leadership. To see more, visit shiftyes.com/blog.