Recruiting Top Talent Post COVID: What Candidates are Looking For

When you’re looking to recruit talent for your company, it can be an overwhelming process — especially if you run a small company. A bad hire in a small company can mean lowered morale and lowered productivity since there are fewer people to offset the negative effects. Not to mention, it’s expensive to onboard and hires someone, so it makes sense to take your time finding the right person for your company. With that said, how do you take steps to attract candidates? What kind of perks and company culture are job searchers looking for in the age of COVID? 

Below, we’ll take a look at what candidates are typically looking for when they’re hunting for a new job. And, we’ll offer some ideas for how to increase the chances you’ll attract top talent to your business.

Compassionate Work Culture

The pandemic has changed the job landscape forever and humanized normally sterile interactions. Zoom calls sometimes mean hearing a colleague’s dog barking in the background or their child asking for attention. In light of this emphasis on compassion and kindness, candidates are looking for companies that work to understand the challenges of day-to-day life. 

If you’re not sure about your company culture and how your current employees feel, consider sending out a survey quarterly. 

Make sure you make the survey anonymous to ensure that employees feel that they can be totally honest and frank. You’ll get much more sincere feedback when you anonymize the survey. Once you have your survey results, use the data gathered to make changes that will enhance the happiness of your employees. Although it’s impossible to keep everyone happy all the time, implementing changes based on employee input is a great way to reduce employee turnover and strengthen the health of your company culture.

Remote Work Perks

With millions of workers semi-permanently or permanently taking remote roles, companies have been adjusting their benefits to meet the needs of their remote workforce. Some companies are offering stipends for utilities, gift cards for lunches, and hosting virtual happy hours to encourage bonding. 

Need some ideas for new benefits to implement at your company? Here are some of our top remote perks you may want to consider:

• Coworking space stipend
• Company trips (once it’s safe to travel again)
• Special home delivery of subscription boxes, welcome-to-the-company boxes, and anniversary boxes
  

Parental Leave Benefits

When your workers are growing their family, it can be tough to balance work and family life. Consider offering generous parental leave benefits. You may also want to offer childcare stipends so workers have an easier time focusing on work, instead of worrying about who will take care of their new bundles of joy. 

Flexible Work Benefits

If your company doesn’t need to be operating during a set period, consider letting your employees work when they feel that best. By integrating flexibility into the work schedule, you can ensure that morning birds can get to work when they feel their best, and night owls can do the same. It’s a great perk that’s easy to integrate. Plus, it keeps your employees happier and more productive since they’re not forced into a schedule that doesn’t work for them.

Wellness Benefits

If you don’t have a healthy workforce, growing as a company can be exceedingly difficult. Besides giving employees full medical, vision, and dental care, it’s also a great idea to give employees wellness benefits. Here are some ideas to help your employees fight off burnout and increase their mental and physical wellness:

• Yoga subscription or online fitness subscription
• Free fitness trackers 
• Online writing service
• Stipends for groceries
  

Sustainable Salary

When candidates are looking for jobs, one of the first things they’re going to search for is a sustainable salary. Sure, as a company you can offer rock-bottom pay, but that won’t attract top talent. To attract talented people to your organization, it’s important to offer competitive market rates. And no, we’re not talking about just a few thousand over the minimum salary requirements, we’re talking tens of thousands over the minimum.

Make sure that you put the salary range for the positions you’re advertising upfront so that you’re not wasting anyone’s time.

If you’re worried that you can’t afford higher salaries, consider implementing other financial rewards that might entice candidates like partial ownership stakes and bonuses. You can also offer benefits like student loan repayment programs or tuition reimbursement.

Not sure about what salary to offer for a particular position? Use Glassdoor or the cost of living websites to figure out a fair salary range. 

Companies that Give Back

Now, more than ever, candidates want companies to actually live up to their values instead of just paying lip service to them. Can your company offer volunteer time off or match charitable donations? These are the benefits that can help set your company apart from others and attract the right people. 

Career Development

Another way to both reduce turnover and increase the likelihood that candidates will come knocking at your door is by offering career development. Nobody wants to be stagnant on their career path, after all. So, make sure you offer ways for your staff to grow their skills and increase their professional development.

Your employees will be happier if they know they have a path to promotion and ways to develop themselves and their careers. Not only will this help your current employees feel more empowered about their career path but it will show potential new employees that you care about their future, too. 

Takeaways: Recruiting Top Talent

Hiring the right people for your company is an incredibly important process. One way that can make finding candidates easier is by making sure your company is attractive to potential employees. Take time to shore up your company culture and reexamine the benefits you offer. Also, make sure you’re offering a fair salary range and a path to help old and new employees develop their professional skills. You don’t have to implement all the changes and benefits in this list, but you can use this article as a jumping-off point. Soon, you’ll have a company of talented, happy, and healthy employees.