How can you attract A-grade IT & digital candidates? STEP ONE: Review and improve your employment brand

How many times has your perfect candidate slipped away at the last second?

Failing to attract A-grade talent, or worse, losing this talent to a competitor during the hiring process is especially problematic in the IT & Digital space.

Why?

Because demand for high-quality insurance talent far outstrips supply.

This means that candidates, not employers, are now occupying the driver’s seat.

In fact, talented and experienced IT individuals are often besieged with offers. They have their pick of the companies they work for, and the roles they choose to do.

So in a candidate-driven market, how can you entice the best insurance professionals to say yes to your job offer?

Download our step-by-step hiring guide for a framework for getting the best talent to not only apply for your vacant position, but say ‘yes’ when you present them with your (well-crafted) offer.

The first step is to look at the message you’re sending out to potential candidates...

Review and improve your employment brand

Here’s how:

• ASK YOUR CURRENT EMPLOYEES

Your staff are your best resource when it comes to determining what they love about working for you, and what they would change. They are also the people spreading word-of-mouth about how good (or not so good) your company is to work for. You can dive into this informally over coffee, through an online questionnaire, in a team setting, or during regular one-to-one employee meetings.

Expect (and welcome) both positive and negative responses. When managing feedback, follow these 6 simple steps:

1. Listen carefully

2. Repeat back the employees concern and ask clarifying questions

3. Reply with empathy and don’t get defensive

4. Don’t be put on the spot, ask for time to respond and provide a solution

5. Seek input from your team about a satisfactory course of action or solution

6. Implement changes that address concerns swiftly

7. Communicate the steps you have taken so your team can start spreading positive word-of-mouth

8. Review the success of your changes and tweak where necessary

• ASK YOUR EXITING EMPLOYEES

It’s highly likely your exiting employees are leaving to join a competitor, so it’s important to find out what word-of-mouth they might spread there. If you regularly action step one above you should have nothing to worry about.

Conducting an exit interview is, however, a great way to garner any final feedback from the leaving employee. You may not be able to do anything to retain the person leaving, but you can take something valuable from them going.

Try to uncover what they think you could change to make your workplace better, thus be more attractive to future candidates (and retain your current ones).

The ideal time to conduct an exit interview is at the start of the employee’s final week. By then, any emotion surrounding handing in their resignation, or having been let go, has dissipated.

When it comes to choosing someone to conduct your exit interview, direct managers are not a good choice. Choose a neutral party so your employee can open up and speak honestly. Opt for someone who has seniority in the company so the employee feels their views are valued. A HR manager is a good choice if you have one, but you can also engage an independent external consultant.

Some key exit interview questions you can ask...

1. What attracted you to your new job and company?

2. What is the main reason for you leaving?

3. Before you decided to look for a new job, did you look at other opportunities here, or speak to anyone about changes that might have made you stay?

4. What have you enjoyed about working here?

5. What haven’t you liked?

6. Were you satisfied with your job’s:

• salary
• work/life balance
• conditions such as work hours?

7. Do you feel your everyday tasks and responsibilities aligned with your expectations of what the job would be? If not, how did they differ?

8. Do you think you had enough training and support to do your job effectively?

9. Did you have access to the right resources to be able to complete your tasks?

10. Do you get enough support from your direct manager? If not, please provide some insights about what they didn’t get right.

11. Do you think your efforts were recognised by your peers and management? If not, how can we improve this?

12. Did you get along with your manager and peers? If not, why?

13. Do you feel there was a clear career path defined for you?

14. What could we have done differently to encourage you to stay?

15. As a company, what specific areas could we improve upon (i.e. client briefing, client experience, project management etc.)?

16. Do you have any other concerns about our company you’d like to share? 

Click here to download the full hiring guide for a framework for getting the best talent to not only apply for your vacant position, but say ‘yes’ when you present them with your (well-crafted) offer.