7 employer qualities that will attract top talent

7 Employer Qualities Top Candidates are Looking For

It’s funny how employers often need to produce the same type of proofs that candidates have to demonstrate. Here are seven qualities hiring managers look for in candidates that top candidates want from employers.

Mirror Image – 7 Qualities Employers Need to Attract Top Candidates

An article on TheUndercoverRecruiter.com lists the Top 7 Qualities Employers are Looking for in Candidates. In job markets where talent scarcity gives savvy job seekers the ability to be just as discerning in choosing a workplace as hiring managers are in selecting candidates, it’s important to remember that employers need to have some of these same qualities if they want to attract top talent.

In addition to questions they have for candidates, recruiters need to come prepared with information that speaks to the employer’s qualities. This is especially true for hiring managers who are looking to attract job seekers who are considered passive candidates – people who are not actively looking for a new job but who would consider an exceptional opportunity.

Recruiters Need to Sell Top Candidates on 7 Employer Qualities

1. Corporate Intelligence

Smart people tend to surround themselves with other smart people. Top candidates want to know whether a potential employer’s culture values and thrives on innovation and continuous improvement, or whether it tends toward the status quo. Staffing recruiters need to understand the corporate culture of their client’s organizations in order to match-make intelligent professionals with intelligent companies.

2. Company Leadership

Leadership issues are the number one reason employees quit; in fact, 75 percent of employees that quit don’t quit their job, they quit their manager, according to an OfficeVibe infographic. Recruiters need to be able to tell candidates what their direct managers as well as company leaders are like.  What’s their management style? What type of employees thrive there? What does it take to become a leader in the company? Inquiring candidates want to know!

3. Intrinsic Organizational Integrity

Transparency. Authenticity. No matter what word you use to describe corporate integrity, corporate integrity – whether the company and its leaders do what they say they are going to do and whether the values they claim as corporate culture really exist – is a quality highly-sought after by the best candidates.

4. Corporate Likeability

Marketing guru Seth Godin said, “People do not buy goods and services. They buy relations, stories, and magic.” The same qualities that make consumers like brands are those that create emotional connection between companies and their workforce.

5. Brand Competence

Top candidates don’t want to work for joke brands, they want to work for the best. Recruiters need to be able to sell job seekers on company reputation. Employers want their workers to come to work every day with their “A game.” Candidates want to know whether a company is going to value them for this type of high performance and one of the ways they determine this is whether the brand adheres to best practices across the organization – best practices that are directly reflected in brand reputation.

6. Courage

Top candidates want to know whether a potential employer is brave enough to do the right thing, innovate, and take chances on them. Intelligence, innovation, integrity, competence – and even likeability: when an employer comes to the table with these qualities, it tells the candidate that the company has courage.

It takes courage to stick to best practices in lieu of taking what might be shady shortcuts. It takes courage for company leaders to be transparent and stick to their word day in and day out, regardless of market place or economic ups and downs. It takes courage to lead in market place innovations on a large scale and empower employees to innovate and experiment in order to help make the company or the workplace better.

7. Inner Strength

What happens when the going gets tough? When a job seeker signs on for a new opportunity, they want to know that the company is in it for the long haul. What companies do when they experience set-backs, downturns and even bad customer reviews tells prospective candidates a lot about the inner strength of the brand.

Looking at an opportunity from the candidates point of view can be incredibly helpful in identifying persuasive qualities that will increase applications among both active and passive job seekers. As a staffing agency recruiter, understanding what matters to top candidates and communicating it in job postings and interviews could give your agency the ability to win over the type of prospects that make you look like a hero to your clients.