How to attract the best and brightest to your company is a challenge we are hearing from most, if not all of our clients right now. Once you find them, hiring, on-boarding, motivating, and ultimately retaining them become the next challenge.
At Lefort Talent Group we speak to candidates every day and are uniquely qualified to lend insights on how to help you with the above targets. Watch your emails from us over the next few months! We will identify strategies you can implement right now in your business to help you find, attract, and retain the best people. Regardless if you use our services or not, the topics within our emails will give you a competitive edge in the "War for Talent".

Continue reading below as we address the talent attraction and retention processes.

Act Fast When Hiring or Risk Losing Out on Great Talent

If candidates had a countdown timer on them like online sales or eBay auctions you would see that there is not much time to make hiring decisions. The most qualified candidates have even less time on their countdown timer. As more and more Baby Boomers transition out of their roles, there is an increased talent shortage and urgency to fill all of the vacancies.

Today’s economy is facing record low unemployment rates and there are more open jobs than ever. Despite this, it is taking more time to fill these jobs. Access to more potential candidates through job boards has hiring managers worried about missing out on selecting the perfect fit for the role.

Leaving positions open for longer means larger workloads for teams and managers alike. Employees of all levels are having to juggle their current responsibilities while picking up slack from the vacancies. For hiring managers, this means that reviewing resumes and conducting interviews can be delayed.

While the hiring manager is an important decisionmaker in the process, the team is equally important. If you do not want to lose out on great talent, empower a senior member of the team to review resumes, conduct interviews, and even make hiring decisions. From there, they can hand off logistics – such as negotiating an offer – to the hiring manager.

Slow decision-making can also occur when you are choosing between two highly qualified candidates.
​When candidates are in a dead heat for the position, do not delay the decision and risk losing both opportunities. Instead, quickly initiate the following procedures.

If a key team member was not present for the interview process, ask them to talk to each candidate to help gauge the candidate’s fit within the team. In a short phone interview with the prospective employee, the team member may be able to gather very important information that did not come up in the initial interview process.

However, after conducting these conversations, you may still be in the same position and no closer to making a decision. In this case, you should ask yourself whether you have the option to bring on both candidates. Top talent is on the move, so instead of trying to determine who has the most potential, bring on both. You will not only shorten your decision time, but also have two new valuable team members that can potentially pay for themselves over time.

Regardless of the labor market, great active and passive candidates always have options. If you want to add someone with the skills and experience needed to round out your team, you have got to act fact. Taking too long to bring them into the hiring process or make a final decision will dramatically increase your time to fill vacancies, adding additional stress to your current team.