For many years, Singapore has been one of the world’s foremost financial hubs. In the wake of the global pandemic, the country has seen impressive recovery in its financial sector, with financial institutions expected to create about 6500 new hiring opportunities in 2021. As a recruitment agency in Singapore, we have the insights and knowledge required to hire candidates in challenging industries.
Singapore is also now becoming a continental and global tech hub, with major companies from countries like China and the U.S. setting up shop here. However, many of these new job opportunities come with highly specific requirements and skill sets, making these positions hard to fill. In a nation of just about 6 million people, recruiters now find themselves faced with a new challenge: what are the ways to find tough to hire candidates?
As most of these positions did not exist ten years ago, traditional methods of finding candidates may be insufficient. By combining traditional recruitment methods such as job advertisements with modern strategies like social media networking, recruitment agencies in Singapore may have a better chance at finding tough to hire candidates.
1. Use social media to get a wider reach
A great place to start is popular social media sites like Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram. It is important for your company to have an online social media presence that allows consumers to engage with the company. Through these platforms, you can develop recruitment and networking strategies for potential candidates, such as videos, blog posts, and online polls.
Additionally, you can use your social media accounts to highlight the benefits of working at your company. However, with many companies involved in the battle to find tough to hire candidates, the usual perks like free lunch have been usurped by more attractive incentives. These days, candidates look for incentives like cash compensation, perceived opportunity for personal development, and lifestyle options like working from home. Younger generations have also shown a higher interest in organizations with good social responsibility profiles.
With social media, you have a far-reaching platform to convey your company’s brand, the social issues you stand for, and what potential candidates stand to gain by joining your organization.
You can also encourage your employees, especially the recruitment team, to build their own social media networks and provide training on how they can help recruit valuable candidates for the company. With a wide network base, you can then optimize your headhunting efforts.
2. Look for talent within your company
When it comes to IT recruitment in Singapore, many of the positions that are most difficult to fill are newly emerging roles in the IT sector. Finding candidates who are qualified and experienced in such roles can be quite hard.
In such scenarios, a good way to lessen the stress of finding tough to hire candidates is looking within the company for talent that can be nurtured and developed to fill the new role. This is where cross-training becomes important, because it allows your employees to develop a diverse skill set that positions them favorably for new jobs.
While this approach may incur additional training costs to upskill employees to the level the jobs require, the benefits of acquiring valuable personnel and building employee loyalty to the company outweigh any cons.
3. Reach out to universities and colleges
For any technology recruitment agency looking to find tough to hire candidates, universities can be a valuable source of future-skilled candidates. When organizations create good relationships with universities, they can advise universities on how to provide students with commercially relevant course content, to produce highly skilled graduates.
Companies can also set up training partnerships with higher learning institutions to upskill graduates in target skillsets. Fostering close relationships with these institutions means you will have access to the cream of the crop when searching for tough to hire candidates. With several new jobs requiring new skillsets which can only be acquired by students in higher learning institutes, it is important to be able to seek out such candidates at the source.
4. Seek out transferable skills
In today’s employment market, more industries are looking for employees with transferable skills. With technology becoming a more integral part of industries like healthcare and finance, the need for tech talent with transferable skills is at an all-time high.
When you are trying to find tough to hire candidates, you may sometimes need to look at other industries and see if you can find similarly skilled candidates there. You can then leverage your brand position and benefits to attract these candidates to work in your company. Another good way to find tough to hire candidates is through employee referrals.
According to a 2020 study by ERIN, referred candidates are four times more likely to be hired than other candidates. Forty five percent of employee referrals remained at their new companies for over 4 years, and eighty two percent of employers rated employee referrals above all other sources for generating the best ROI. Most candidates are more enthusiastic about joining an organization where they already know someone, and this makes the onboarding process even faster.
5. Refine your job descriptions
Traditional recruitment strategies like placing ads on job boards are still very valuable ways to find tough to hire candidates. To give your company an edge against the competition, refine your job descriptions to more aptly and attractively highlight the expectations and rewards of working at your organization.
A lot of the power lies in the potential candidates’ hands, the job advertisement they encounter should hook them and convince them that they should work for you. Some of the things you could consider in your job ad include:
An apt description of the job particulars
Company perks and benefits
Individual career advancement opportunities
6. Work with a trusted recruitment agenc
When it comes to finding tough to hire candidates, working with a recruitment agency can prove invaluable. These agencies often have a better understanding of the avenues to follow to find such talents, and will save your HR department valuable time spent on passive candidates. It is important to have your hiring managers work closely with the recruitment agency to ensure that your hiring needs are adequately met and that there is no miscommunication.
Looking for more tips and tricks on how to hire candidates in Singapore? Check out the BGC Group blog for more articles and information.
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