How to use your company culture to fill that vacancy

Back to blog

The recruiter's greatest friend when it comes to filling vacancies is your company culture. Here's 7 ways you can use that culture to hire more! But it all starts with assessing which parts are working for you, and which parts to promote.

Show off your culture while onboarding

When your candidate reaches the onboarding stage, consider using a portal to make them feel safe, secure and excited about their first day! We designed a state-of-the-art New Starter Welcome Hub for users of our Jobtrain applicant tracking system. It provides the best new starter onboarding experience available with videos showing off your company philosophy and individual content to get the candidate ready for their induction!

Your Culture should be your top priority during the onboarding stage, so make sure to include those videos and images that you’ve been creating! Write about what makes you so different. In 2022, our Talent Intelligence team noted that 8% (1 in 12) of candidates withdrew after accepting an offer prior to start. The best way to make sure you don’t lose the best talent to competitors is by making them feel valued and excited about their first week. Your culture is the avenue into that engagement!

Set clear expectations

Workers need direction. They need to know what you expect of them and how their jobs contribute to the larger goals of the organisation. Clear expectations help employees understand their responsibilities and the impact they can make.

Give them enough guidance and direction so they can succeed - and you can learn how they like to be managed and what they consider to be feedback. Work to ensure that expectations are met - this is a fundamental gap-repair task.

Make work fun

Employees who enjoy their jobs work harder. Fun doesn’t have to mean free food (though that can help). It can mean a creative environment, like a studio where people are passionate about their craft and about the music that’s being captured. It can mean thoughtful and relevant recognition, like a staff meeting where everyone gets to celebrate each other. Fun doesn’t have to cost money, but a dull workplace sure does seem to cost productivity.

Give people control

Employees want to feel like they have a say - especially when it comes to matters that affect them directly. Giving employees control over some aspects of their jobs (without making you look bad) can help foster a sense of ownership, which typically makes them more committed to the organisation. Give employees a chance to provide feedback and influence decisions that affect them. 5.0 of this will lead to a great result.

Be consistent

Employees need to know what to expect. A lack of consistency in management style, feedback, and performance evaluation creates anxiety, which tends to make employees try harder (while hoping for a change in the future). Creating clear, consistent guidelines on these - and other - aspects of the job will help enhance employee satisfaction.

A candidate needs to know how they’re doing, so they can improve. Unfortunately, the way most people receive feedback is far more destructive than constructive. Avoid negative feedback in public, and refrain from criticising someone in front of others. Find a positive way to encourage improvement.

Show you care

People want to feel appreciated. Showing appreciation doesn’t have to be a huge production; a simple “thank you” goes a long way. Showing that you care also involves paying attention to employees’ personal issues—a death in the family, for example. Small gestures of support go a long way. Small gestures, like letting someone go home early around Christmas time, can make a big difference in employee morale!

Emotions drive behaviour, so celebrate achievements as a way to encourage more good work. Create a system where good work is recognised and rewarded with perks, promotions or just public acknowledgment. Success breeds success, so celebrate even the smallest victories. Publicly acknowledge accomplishments to create a feeling of accomplishment that can foster further success.

Provide an achievable path to success

People don’t like being pushed; they like to make their own decisions and choices. Make goals attainable by explaining how people can help achieve them. Show how each person’s contribution is important—and how each can play a role in success.

People have different needs, desires and styles. So allow employees some leeway in how they accomplish tasks. Where possible, remove strict time constraints. Also, encourage individuals to participate in decisions that affect them.

Satisfied people do better work. Create opportunities for employees to grow personally by encouraging training or education that will enhance career advancement. Also, encourage community service activities that promote personal growth and development outside of the workplace.