How to attract talent for specialist and senior level roles without paying expensive recruitment agency fees

Recruiting for specialist and senior level roles is something that takes a different approach to the norm, as finding the ideal candidate can be even harder than filling vacancies in general. The more niche or demanding the position, the more complicated it can be to find individuals who are both suitable and interested in a career move.

With lower numbers of potential candidates who could fit the bill, many companies find themselves contemplating whether they should use executive and specialist head-hunters to help them. And that can be an effective route to securing a good candidate. But it’s also a very expensive option – with fees sometimes costing upwards of 30% of the candidate’s starting salary.

How else can you attract suitable candidates?

So if you’re looking for less expensive alternatives when it comes to finding the best candidates out there, what other options are open to you?

Doing it all in-house is certainly a possibility, particularly if you’ve an extensive network in which you could identify some potentially suitable candidates relatively quickly. But taking on every aspect of the recruitment process yourself will inevitably take a large amount of time. If you don’t have a network that enables you to easily contact suitable candidates, it can be even more time-intensive: time that could be spent on other activities within your business. And you might not feel you have the expertise to know how best to position the role, or effectively reach out to suitable candidates either.

You could find that working with a talent sourcing partner provides you with the ideal alternative. Their expertise will help you find the right talent with a highly targeted approach and at a far lower cost than using a recruitment agency. And their expertise adds a lot of value in several ways.

Creating the best possible impression through your branding

Recruiting for specialist roles presents a great opportunity to raise employer brand awareness. Spending time identifying and building a strong employer branding strategy will help your company stand out from the competition both in terms of the role you’re immediately recruiting for, and also as a longer-term investment for building your talent pipeline.

And a recruitment talent sourcing partner can help you do this. They’ll work with you to identify what it is that you offer that could tempt someone away from their current role – often a role they’re happy with – and encourage them to take a serious look at your position. And then they will help you identify how you can make sure that message is coming across throughout all the touchpoints of the recruitment process to help form a positive impression in prospective candidates’ minds.

An understanding of where to find the right talent

A talent sourcing partner will have in-depth knowledge about how to recruit effectively for more niche roles within given markets, and the industry trends that affect the way candidates need to be approached.

That knowledge can be used to guide your recruitment strategy, identifying which marketing techniques are likely to have the biggest impact and find the talent pool you need. They will guide you on all the ways you can get your position seen – including using job boards which can still be really effective for these types of roles. But you will need a good mix of leading and specialist sites to ensure your job adverts are being seen by the right people. Your recruitment partner can help advise you which are the best ones to focus on.

Highly targeted social media approaches

LinkedIn is a great tool to use to target and reach out to professionals who might be interested in your specialist or senior level roles. It’s an excellent resource to use when hiring for hard-to-fill positions, allowing you to identify people with the skillset you are after and providing a route to contact them immediately.

But you’ll need to be prepared to put plenty of time aside to do this. Identifying suitable candidates on LinkedIn is not a quick and easy task. And then you need to go through the process of approaching them. Even when you find someone who looks ideal, they won’t necessarily be interested in an immediate move. A talent sourcing partner can help to take care of this for you. They will know how to carry out the searches effectively and are also experienced at making that initial contact and positioning the role in a highly appealing way.

An independent approach can be easier for the candidate

Something else to bear in mind is that being contacted by a third party can make it a lot easier for the candidate to feel able to respond with interest. Some potential candidates might find it awkward to engage with a company approaching them out of the blue – especially if that employer happens to be a direct competitor.  But a candidate that’s of interest may be more open to communicating with a third party, and not be as concerned that their conversation is likely to get back to their current employer. A talent sourcing partner knows how to follow up effectively with candidates and make sure they are staying engaged and interested, but not feeling bombarded or pressurised.

Why not make JVP Group your talent sourcing partner?

As talent sourcing experts, we proactively track down talent for your niche and senior level roles, making sure that every candidate has the potential to be the ideal fit.

To complement the extensive job board advertising and social media recruitment marketing we do as part of every recruitment campaign, we also identify professionals via LinkedIn. We conduct advanced searches targeting individuals based on their current place of work, industry, location and profile keywords. And then we send personalised direct messages to encourage interest and establish relationships. All click-throughs are tracked, and responses handled to make sure you’re getting the best possible value from our support.

Talk to us today to find out how we can help you attract the ideal candidates for your senior and specialist roles.