Successful staff recruitment: finding and attracting the right employees

“Vacancies, standard job advertisements, finding someone good in good time?” It’s often not that simple anymore. Our tips for successful staff recruitment in times of a shortage of skilled workers.

The AXA SME labor market study clearly shows: The expectations of employees and applicants have risen. The challenge for SMEs is therefore to differentiate themselves from the competition in order to attract the desired top talent – suitable for the job, suitable for the team, suitable for the company.

7 tips for creating effective job ads

If you want to attract good specialists, you need job advertisements that hit the mark. The following tips from AXA HR experts and representatives of Swiss SMEs can help:

1. Choose a short, meaningful job title. You should also pay attention to what suitable candidates are looking for on the internet.
2. List the weekly working hours for the job prominently under the title, and give a range (e.g. 80-100%).
3. Specify at the top whether and to what extent working from home is possible or whether or how many days you have to work on site.
4. Use gender-appropriate language to appeal to many different people with your ad.
5. The language should reflect your corporate culture : For example, if you have a more informal culture, your advertisement should also be more casual.
6. Be creative in structure and wording to stand out from the competition. Make sure that the tone matches your company and the target group.
7. Explain how interested parties can apply. Keep this process as simple as possible and ideally give someone’s contact details (email address and phone number) for any questions from interested parties.

Create job vacancies quickly and easily using AI

Artificial intelligence can help with the first rough draft of your job posting. In the chat, enter what you need, which points should be mentioned, and in which style the text should be written. For this purpose, you can upload reference documents, such as existing job advertisements or company-specific language style guides.

Note: Do not enter confidential data such as personal details or sensitive internal company information into external AI tools (even in the paid version / with a Pro license).

Attracting the right talent – in three steps

Before you start writing a job ad, you need to know who you are looking for and what you can offer this target group in the specific position.

1. Define desired profile 

Understand what skills you need and what kind of candidate profile is needed for the position. It’s also worthwhile for existing positions, as AXA recruiting expert Ute Schläfli explains: “You can also use a termination as an opportunity to reconsider the profile you are looking for: ‘Do we need someone with different characteristics than before? Would we like to see more diversity? Which profiles complement the existing team particularly well?’”

According to Schläfli, it is particularly important that the requirements and expectations of the position are clear. This includes the necessary skills and experience: It is important to clarify for yourself what are the must-haves and what is advantageous, but do not include exclusion criteria. “Write this in your job offer so that people who can’t (yet) put a check mark behind all the requirements apply,” advises Ute Schläfli.

It is also important to define which personal characteristics and the type of person in general that are needed – a point that should not be underestimated. “This way you can ensure that the candidate fits well into the team and complements it in the best possible way.”

Ute Schläfli considers it particularly important that future line managers and the team are involved at an early stage: “If team members are involved in the recruitment process from the outset, they will later be more supportive of the (joint) decision of the hiring. This will make onboarding and working with their new colleague enormously easier.”

2. Create a suitable offer

“Anyone who understands the market attracts the best specialists,” explains entrepreneur Cornel Müller. His  Future of Work Group AG offers supportive digital platforms and tools in the recruitment area for both job seekers and companies. His vision: Making it easier to bring employers and employees together.

He believes: Before companies can address potential applicants in a targeted manner, they first need to know their own stumbling blocks. “A shortage of skilled workers is not always market-driven, but sometimes ‘homemade’. Every SME should ask itself: Is it difficult to find skilled workers because there are not enough? Or are there too few in the respective region? Is my industry not attractive enough? Are other companies in a better position, or am I not looking in the right way?”

The Swiss Skilled Workers Index (SFKI) provides answers to these questions. Developed by Future of Work Group AG in cooperation with the Lucerne University of Applied Sciences and Arts, the scientifically based index provides companies with information on where they stand in the skilled labor market, where the stumbling blocks lie when recruiting specialized specialists and how they could be eliminated.

Emphasize your own strengths and advantages

Once you have defined what the defined target group wants, it much easier to highlight your own advantages. Ute Schläfli from AXA Recruiting stresses that there are some assets that don’t require a large budget: “For example, mention if you have particularly flat hierarchies and short decision-making channels. Or if your employees benefit from a great deal of flexibility.”

Something that many employees also appreciate is the wide range of activities and the opportunity to get involved outside the core area itself. “SMEs sometimes have more options here, but they should be emphasized more,” says Schläfli.

Present advantageous basic conditions

It’s also worth taking the needs and requirements of potential employees seriously when it comes to basic conditions. An AXA survey of around 1,000 employees in Switzerland shows: In addition to fair compensation, employees expect progressive employers to be flexible in terms of working hours and models, as well as working from home.

For your specific offer, this means: Check which framework conditions apply in your company and in the position to be filled. Are there flexible working time models available? Is it possible to work from home?

“It’s best to show your flexibility directly in the job advertisement,” advises Ute Schläfli. “If, for example, you have to fill a full-time position, enter 70-100% as the amount of working hours per week.” This way, you don’t miss the opportunity to find candidates for whom a traditional full-time job is not an option or no longer an option.

Talk about your corporate culture: What is special about the working atmosphere in your company? What do you do to make employees feel comfortable, develop further, and all pull together?

Identify development prospects

René Widmer also knows that it often takes more to fill vacancies these days. The Managing Director and Board of Directors of Duss Küchen AG reports: “In general, we found that fewer people are now applying for an advertised position than in the past. It often takes a little more time or sometimes luck to find qualified employees.”

According to the contractor, employee needs have changed: “In addition to an interesting job, a modern infrastructure and an independent way of working, these days young talents also seek out flexible work models and the opportunity to grow and train in house.”

Therefore, in your offer to potential applicants, you should also explain how employees can develop in your company. How do you promote further training in your company? What career paths are open to individual team members?

Cornel Müller of Future of Work Group AG recommends SMEs first find out how to make their workforce fit for the labor market of the future – and do so in a targeted and efficient manner. To help with this, its Future of Work Group AG has developed the digital career consultant Skills Manager .

The tool shows employees which skills will become more important in the future, which jobs or projects best fit their own profile and how gaps in their job profile can be closed in a targeted manner. For line managers, the Skills Manager is a useful tool to identify which employees are best suited to a project or vacancy and where there is still room for further development in the workforce.

Either way, knowing which competencies are needed for specific positions will help you show your employees – and potential applicants – attractive development prospects. At the same time, you ensure the future viability of your company.

Provide additional incentives

Last but not least, you should also prominently promote other benefits in your job offer, the so-called fringe benefits. These include, for example:

• Subsidizing public transportation passes
• REKA and lunch checks
• Additional vacation days
• Employee discounts
• A workplace that promotes employee health
• Attractive pension solutions

3. Address potential applicants in a targeted manner

Now you know who you are looking for and have come up with a suitable job offer. But how do you communicate this outside of your company?

What recruiting measures are there?

Conclusion

Either way, when it comes to staff recruitment, one thing is particularly important for long-term success: “Continuously work on your employer branding to show people why it’s worth working for you.” This includes small things like LinkedIn posts about the company’s culture, one’s own values or team successes. Or perhaps a larger measure for employer branding, such as a career event, might also be considered.

Which, according to Schläfli, is always worthwhile and pays off two and three times over: “Look at how you can increase employee satisfaction and retention. Happy employees are not only more productive, they are also the best way to promote your employer brand.”