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People look for a new job for a variety of reasons. It might be to fast-track their career, to earn more money or simply in response to external factors such as a change in personal circumstances.
Most of the time though, people are looking for something they either can’t get in their current role, or are moving away from aspects of their current job they don’t like. These overarching elements often dominate their job search.
As a hiring manager, it’s tricky to gauge what is most important to job seekers and tailor your recruitment campaign and job offer to match - especially when each potential employee is looking for something different!
What follows are a few of the top things people look for when considering a career move, along with some ways you can showcase them when recruiting.
1. Growth opportunities
A recent Australian employment report by the Institute of Managers and Leaders estimated that 60% of employees resigned because of limited career progression at their company. This is supported by a LinkedIn study that found 59% of candidates accepted a job offer because they were excited about future career opportunities with the company.
These statistics clearly show growth is really important to people when changing jobs - in fact, LinkedIn found that it is the number one reason employees switch roles.
What does this mean for hiring managers? You need to focus on selling not just the job itself, but where the job might take the successful applicant in future.
How do you do this? Be clear in communicating your company’s training and development programs, business growth plans, role-specific career pathways as well as highlighting long employee tenure. These will help you showcase the future opportunities you offer potential employees.
Highlight all of these things in your recruitment material - job description, job ad, interviews and job offer. If you need a bit more help with this material, our article about writing a killer position description to really sell your job will assist you.
2. Pay and benefits potential
It’s not surprising that LinkedIn found an increase in salary to be the second most important thing employees look for in a new role. They found that 54% of those who recently changed jobs accepted their new role because of better compensation and/or benefits.
Whether it’s the main reason for changing jobs or not, most job seekers appreciate the chance to bulk-up their pay packet when switching roles.
Being transparent about your job’s salary bracket will help you attract great employees. Hiding it will just make them look elsewhere. But before communicating about salary, do your research and make sure you’re providing one that’s on par with market rates. If you want the best, you have to be willing to pay them what they’re worth.
In today’s competitive market, going beyond the traditional pay packet can also help attract and secure great talent. Job seekers today look for things like:
- Overtime or bonuses
- Share schemes
- Extra super contributions
- Flexibility to personalise benefit package
There are many perks and benefits you can offer to entice prospective applicants to accept your job offer. Depending on their life stage, they may be after certain ones - like maternity/paternity leave - so it’s a good idea to have a ‘mix-n-match’ offering. Some popular choices include:
Health programs - These show employees you care about their personal well being. It could be an on-site gym, fitness and meditation classes or mobile health clinic visits (e.g. GP, dentist).
Paid time off - This is a fantastic way to look after employees and there are a host of things you can offer like extended maternity leave/paternity leave, extra leave days or the ability to ‘cash in’ unused sick leave. For example, at Veritas Recruitment our employees gain extra days leave for each work milestone they hit after 2 years!
Insurance - Health insurance can help you show the importance you place on your employees' wellbeing. In Australia, corporate health insurance policies take a few forms – you can fully or partially fund them. You can also opt for full hospital and extras coverage, or just pick one. If you have a number of employees, health funds may be up for a bit of negotiation premium-wise too.
Should you have a great combination of any of these benefits, be sure to showcase them in all your recruitment material and your job offer.
3. Great leaders
It’s highly likely you’ve come across the saying ‘people leave managers, not companies’. The relationship an employee has with their direct manager can enhance - or ruin - their work experience. If 75% of people are leaving companies because of their bad bosses, you can bet many of them are looking at your management team when deciding whether or not to accept your job.
What can you do to showcase your leaders and their management styles? First up, carefully review them and their communication habits. For example, are they top-down and restrictive, or more autonomous and transparent? Are they conducive to accepting employee feedback and if so, do they action it?
After your review, develop a ‘highlights reel’ of your management’s positive leadership traits and speak about them (and embody them!) during recruitment. It’s also a good idea to provide ongoing training for leaders to help introduce and/or reinforce great leadership traits and eliminate unwanted ones.
You should also encourage your leaders to develop (or hone) their public image by being active across social media. For example, they could share thought-leadership articles or celebrate their team’s successes on LinkedIn. This will go a long way in showcasing their leadership style to prospective candidates, especially the ones that are coming off a ‘bad-boss’ experience.
4. A good company brand
Candidates want to work for great brands. In fact, 69% of job seekers said they would decline a job offer from an employer with a bad reputation – even if they were unemployed.
But not every brand can be as well-known as Google. So how do potential candidates decide your brand is in the ‘great’ or ‘not-so-great’ category? The most common way - they search online.
Glassdoor delved into this phenomenon and found online reviews really do shape candidates’ opinions of a brand. They also strongly affect whether a person would take a job at a particular company. For example, when reading a negative online review, most respondents said it would dissuade them from applying to that company for two reasons:
- It changes their opinion of the company
- They’re worried about what others would think about them if they worked there
Interestingly, participants viewed employee reviews as being more credible than any awards the company received for their HR practices.
What does this mean for you? Check your online reviews as you will be judged by them. If you find them lacking, address the concerns raised in your work practices.
You should also respond to negative reviews. Do so in a calm, respectful, logical and ‘fact-based’ manner. Illustrate the steps you’ve taken to remedy concerns raised, or share why you disagree using concrete examples from your workplace to back it up. After your initial response, take the conversation offline. Arguing in public does you no good.
Tip: you might have a marketing and/or PR department who can help you formulate the best response.
5. Work-life balance
The next factor high up on the employee ‘wants’ list is a work-life balance. Glassdoor’s Employment Confidence Survey found 88% of respondents would consider taking a job with flexible hours over one without. Eighty per cent said the same thing when it comes to the option of working from home.
Thanks to ever-advancing technology, both of these options are easily a reality across many industries, yet most companies fail to take advantage of this.
If your company stars in the flexibility category, be sure to shout about it in your job ad, position description, during the interview phase and when offering the successful candidate the job.
Does your company need a work-life balance boost? Our ‘team flexibility’ tips might help.
6. Culture fit
Studies show that over 96% of candidates are also looking for a good ‘culture’ when searching for a new job.
A recent UK-based survey found 90% of job seekers researched company culture on the internet before accepting a role. This is why it’s important you clearly communicate your company culture in as many ways as possible, starting with your website and across your social media.
Clarity about company culture in your online presence is great, but make sure you follow-through with the same message in all your recruitment materials. Highlight it in your position description. Personify it when you’re communicating with potential candidates. Bring it up during interviews.
Assessment tools like Thrive Map can also be really helpful in measuring culture fit as they use a variety of methods - from online questionnaires to role plays to competency-based interviews - to gauge a culture match.
A final word...
That’s our list of what people are looking for when changing jobs. It’s highly likely you have many of these things already in place in your company. If so, it's essential you show them off when hiring.
The first place to start is in your position description. Should you need a bit of assistance in crafting it, download our handy template. Here’s hoping it will help you entice some great talent to apply for your position!
Read more Blogs Date published 27/09/2018
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