Hiring in a candidate's market

When it's a candidate's market it puts added pressure on you as the practice owner / leader to get the process of recruitment right.

But it's tough when you feel like you're just one of many practices recruiting right now, and maybe you feel like your practice isn't enough in some way shape or form to stand out from the crowd.

How do you make sure you're seen and heard in the market?

It starts before you recruit. It starts with your employment brand.

Your employment brand is the image that your prospective, current, and past employees have in their minds about the employment experience at your practice. The main advantage of having the right employment brand is that you'll be able to attract talent rather than chase talent. It also emphasises what value you can add to someone's life and career. It tells people what they should expect from you in terms of an experience if they come and work for you and it helps to attract the right people into your practice. And not only that, it sets an expectation upfront about what it's like to work for you and how to behave in your practice. It also helps you compete above and beyond salary. Reputation carries more weight than money.

Speaking of money, I saw something on LinkedIn recently that said a company with a stronger employment brand than its competitors on average, see a 43% decrease in the cost per person they hire, which is quite interesting.

How do you start working on your employment brand?

1. Firstly, your employment brand might not be what you assume it is. The best people to ask are the people who work for you now, and the people who have worked for you before. Do your research to find out how the practice is perceived by current employees and past employees. Look at your best people. Why are they there? What did they like about working for the practice?
2. Next, you need to get really clear on your vision, your mission, your values, and your culture. Then, get really clear on what your value proposition is to future vets and nurses, and make sure that it truly reflects what is special about your practice. You can't make this stuff up, it has to be real.
3. And finally, use numbers and data to develop some metrics to determine your historical success with recruitment. You can use data to assess retention, employee engagement, the quality of people that apply to work for you, the cost per hire amongst other things.

It is a candidate's market right now so make sure you're seen and heard in the market for the right reasons.

Contrary to popular belief, you don't have to shout the loudest or offer ridiculous salaries to have candidates pay attention to you if you have a really strong employment brand.