5 Tips to Attract Top Talent and Make the Hiring Process PainlessCOMPANIES SHOW STRONGER FINANCIAL PERFORMANCE WHEN THEY DO!

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Table of ContentsCandidates for your open positions have diligently pre-

pared, put their best foot forward during the interview

process, provided excellent references, nailed the

questions and rocked the crisp, freshly dry-cleaned

suit. They are certainly qualified for the position, and

they may even be the top candidate, but busy sched-

ules make you slip on follow up after the interview.

They move on to another company, another interview.

How do you stop top talent from going elsewhere,

and nail the hiring process?

The U.S. unemployment rate is now the lowest it’s

been this century¹, so it’s now more important than

ever to elevate your employer brand and increase of-

fer acceptance from top talent. After all, simply adding

one star performer to a team boosts the effectiveness

of other team members by 5-15%.² No wonder, then,

that study after study shows stronger financial perfor-

mance in companies that make proportionally greater

investments in identifying and developing top talent.

Here are five ways to attract top talent and

make the hiring process painless for them:

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1 Develop a Strong Employer Value Proposition (EVP)An EVP is a statement that explains why top talent employees should work for your company. It details the benefits your company offers their employees in exchange for their talents. Benefits, in this sense, is not necessarily medical insurance and personal time off. Instead, it details unique benefits, such as a dynamic workplace culture, the opportunity to work with top name clients, community outreach, training and development programs. 84 percent of the world’s top 100 most attractive employers (as defined by college students) have a strong employer value proposition.³

Yelp! is an example of one company doing it right. The company career site states:

We’re passionate about connecting people with great local businesses. At Yelp, we’re bringing together world-class talent from different experiences, disciplines and areas of study to produce a world-class product.

This statement shows potential candidates why the work at Yelp! is so important not just to them but to the world around them.

The Yelp! career site goes on to say:

We believe in giving our employees the tools and resources to keep them healthy, wealthy and wise. Whether it’s a gym subsidy, unlimited snacks or healthcare benefits, we believe happy employees are successful employees.

As you can see, the company shares an array of unique benefits they offer, while also giving candidates a glimpse into their company culture. They even have a great value proposition page, complete with fun photos asking employees to “be unboring.” Sounds like a great place to work, right?

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2 Keep Your Talent Acquisition Period Short

The average hiring process lasts around a month, which may be too long—especially in specific industries, such as IT, where candidates are typically off the market within 10 days. A lengthy recruitment process causes talented candidates to reject offers. And more than half of recruiters confirm that a lengthy process holds them back from recruiting top talent.

This shouldn’t be surprising — if you find your perfect candidate, they are probably someone else’s perfect candidate, too. A shorter hiring process will let you snatch up top talent – use the 24-hour rule of thumb⁴:

> Create checkpoints with 24-hour turnaround periods at criticalsteps in the process.

> Make sure your recruitment pipeline isn’t leaky — haveyour team schedule interviews within 24 hours of finding apromising candidate.

> Train your staff to have offers drawn up within 24 hours of afavorable decision after an interview.

3 Engage Early with a Candidate PortalIt’s important to engage early with top talent, ensure candidates are treated like VIPs, and boost your offer acceptance rate. You need to investigate setting up an easily accessible portal which provides guidance and transparency every step of the way—from the first point of contact to interview to date of hire, and beyond.

You can give the candidate a special link to their portal so that they can communicate with you secrurely, complete tasks, and track their status every step of the way. Automatic email notifications sent from the portal give candidates a clear understanding of their status, making them feel connected to the hiring process. You can even make offers from the portal.

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4 Improve Your Company’s Brand Image 75% of potential employees consider an employer’s brand before filling out a job application. The best potential candidates are more than smart, savvy, and experienced. They are a strong fit for the culture of your company. HR leaders who ensure a consistently dynamic brand personality across every candidate touch-point will:

> Accelerate candidate pipeline growth> Shorten the time to fill roles> Land top-tier talent

A study from CareerArc found that 75% of job seekers consider an employer’s brand before even applying for a job. However, the same study showed that only 57% of employers have an employer brand strategy.⁵

A great example of an employer brand strategy? Shoes of Prey, a global e-commerce retail brand that allows women to custom design their perfect shoes. Halfway down their career page, they have a “culture code,” which delves into values and aspect of the company culture and explains why it is important to the work environment.

We surround ourselves with people who inspire us every day. They innovate, they motivate and they are driven to create. Underpinning the way we work is our Culture Code, which defines our core beliefs, traditions and values, including:

> Passionately create happiness> Deliver on promises> Fearless not foolish> Open & thoughtful communication> Work is life enhancing

To attract the most qualified employees, and to best serve candidates, HR leaders and their companies must take deliberate steps to create and evangelize a dynamic employer brand. Yes, the tables turn on you. Rather than your judging the candidate’s resume, the candidate will be judging your job ad. But how do you make it attractive?

The job ad will have to be specific but not dry. There’s somewhat of a trend to make everything sound amazing, but don’t just jump on the bandwagon. You’ll be reaching out to people who have seen more than one ad in their lifetime. Yes, there is room for communicating your corporate culture and humor. However, if there’s one thing you shouldn’t get too creative about, it’s the job title – keep it simple and straightforward. There are many ways you can help your company showcase its unique culture and attract top talent, including:

> Leveraging active and accessible social media profiles> Targeting ads toward passive job seekers> Creating job descriptions that focus on the business impact of the role instead of a

list of required skills

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5 Look at Existing Talent Taking a look at the best of your existing talent will also help you attract new potential candidates.

Recently, a Gallup poll found that companies in the top 25% of employee engagement experience 21% higher productivity and 22% higher profitability.⁶

Familiarize yourself with different departments and roles within those departments. Sit down with the best employees and chat about their work. You might even spend some time following the best of the best employees through the day.

Ask your current employees, if your current culture accepts difference in others? Is there flexibility? How does current staff feel about working there? How are people promoted and/or rewarded? These questions can be very valuable when attracting new talent.

You can even incorporate a cool company video of your best asset – your employees – like this one from CloudLock, complete with a pinata!

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Hire the right people, faster with Microsoft Dynamics 365 for Talent

Microsoft Dynamics 365 for Talent combines the power of Dynamics 365, Office 365, and LinkedIn, plus predictive analytics and machine learning, to drive digital transformation in HR. The result: a better way to attract, engage, and retain high-performing people.

Dynamics 365 for Talent enables collaborative recruiting, where you can customize your entire hiring process with Dynamics 365, plus the power of LinkedIn. It allows you to easily share candidate information from a centralized location with your hiring team.

Built on Microsoft Common Data Service and PowerApps, and integrated into Microsoft Dynamics 365 Finance and Operations, you can reach passive candidates, and search both within your company and externally for the right fit. Use an ideal candidate profile to search for others like it, get targeted recommendations, and speed up your search with advanced recruiting filters.

> Create an extraordinary candidate experience> Ensure candidates are treated like very important people with an easily accessible

portal that provides guidance and transparency every step of the way> Empower hiring managers> Enable hiring managers with visibility into candidate profiles, assessment tools,

interviewer assignments, simplified interview scheduling, and mobile feedback

For more information, check out our webcast and learn more on automating key hiring processes, as well as creating quick and smooth on-boarding of new hires with the Dynamics 365 Talent solution.

Sources1. “The U.S. Unemployment Rate Is Now the Lowest It’s Been This Century.” Fortune, May 8, 2018. Retrieved from http://fortune.com/2018/05/04/unemployment-rate-century-low-percent/

2. “What Science Says About Identifying High-Potential Employees.” Harvard Business Review, Oct. 3, 2017. Retrieved from https://hbr.org/2017/10/what-science-says-about-identifying-high-potential-employees

3. “Employer Value Propositions Are Brand Building Blocks.” Society for Human Resource Management, Oct. 4, 2017. Re-trieved from https://www.shrm.org/resourcesandtools/hr-topics/talent-acquisition/pages/employer-value-proposi-tions-are-brand-building-blocks.aspx

4. “Talent Acquisition: How to Attract the Best.” HR Gazette. Retrieved from. https://hr-gazette.com/talent-acquisition-at-tract-best/

5. “2015 Employer Branding Study: 9 Key Findings.” Career Arc. Retrieved from https://www.careerarc.com/blog/2015/06/22/38-percent-of-employees-who-were-let-go-share-negative-views-of-employers-new-careerarc-employer-branding-study/

6. “Surprising Results from the 2017 Gallup Employee Engagement Report.” The Employee App, March 7, 2017. Retrieved from https://www.theemployeeapp.com/gallup-2017-employee-engagement-report-results-nothing-changed/

About Alithya Alithya is a leading strategy and digital technology company, with over 2,000 highly skilled professionals delivering solutions across Canada, the US and Europe. Alithya’s Microsoft practice covers a wide array of capabilities, including Dynamics, Azure, business analytics, digital solutions, advanced analytics, application development and architecture. Focused on business outcomes, our combined companies have delivered Microsoft solutions to over 1,200 clients. Alithya’s global offering is to deliver strategy and digital technology services in addition to implementing ERP and integrated solutions.

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