To work in the recruitment profession today is not easy! The market is over stressed, there is more demand than supply, companies are competing with each other with benefits and employee turnover is often immense.

Far too many businesses still operate under the outdated assumption they only need to recruit employees when they have job openings. In a hyper-competitive environment, you need to find good people long before you need them.

Building a strong, sustainable workforce requires proactive recruiting practices that attract candidates year-round by promoting your company to prospective employees as you would promote it to customers or clients. If your company doesn’t have an ongoing recruiting practice in place, probably you are already behind the competition.

Reasons why your company should always be on the hunt for the best and brightest:

• It decreases the time and cost of hiring. If you’re constantly developing a community of interested applicants, you’ll source better candidates quicker. Having a careers link on your website which accepts resumes is different than having a continuous recruiting process, which is all about nurturing potential relationships.
• It increases employee retention because a quicker hiring process means that existing employees are not stretched thin for a protracted period of time, which can lead to burnout and turnover.
• It decreases the time and cost of hiring. If you’re constantly developing a community of interested applicants, you’ll source better candidates quicker. Having a careers link on your website which accepts resumes is different than having a continuous recruiting process, which is all about nurturing potential relationships.
• It creates positive buzz for your company’s brand.  Job seekers who have a personal and positive experience as an applicant will talk about it with friends and family.

However roughly more than one in four workers, will leave their jobs this year to go work for another company.

It doesn’t have to be this way. “More than three in four employees (77 percent) who quit could have been retained by employers,” write the authors of the study, which was conducted by the Tennessee-based Work Institute using data from more than 234,000 exit interviews. Turnover trends such as these are compelling many companies and managers to up their games when it comes to their employee retention strategies. And through better retention, these firms are hoping to avoid the high costs of turnover.

Retention Starts Early

Most experts agree that retention efforts should start on day one, and this makes the onboarding process crucial to retention success—and, sometimes, a predictor as to whether the employee will be short-term or long-term.

Successful onboarding should accomplish three things: employees learn what makes the company unique, employees learn exactly how their jobs help fulfill the company’s mission, and employees experience the mission and values of the company. “Employees yearn to feel connected to their roles, colleagues, managers and companies”. By creating better experiences in the onboarding phase, companies can build these emotional connections early in the employee journey.”

Given this, the onboarding process should be a two-way one: managers should communicate the company’s story and accomplishments to new employees, but they should also focus on the new employee by communicating how his or her skill sets and work accomplishments will help the firm.

This is where many firms fall down, companies are often good at telling their own story, but a continual focus on the company makes the employee feel left out–especially younger workers who want to be recognized. “Only a few companies focus on the new employee as an individual. It falling flat, especially on the Millennials.”

As a company, you destroy capital and lose talent if you don’t keep the back door closed. Recruiters need to be supported in their work by Management and HR to give employees a proper introduction, benchmark benefits and adjust where necessary but perhaps most importantly personal attention. Certainly the millennial generation needs attention and challenge. As soon as employees don’t get this attention they are gone faster than recruitment can recruit them.