How to Engage Candidates Most Likely to Quit

October 7, 2014 at 6:00 AM by Kathleen de Lara

how to improve employee retentionNow that you know when employees are most likely to quit, what's your plan for influencing how they stay? Likewise, what's your plan for reaching out to potential hires on your competitors' teams? 

As we reported in yesterday’s post, a recent Entelo study found that employees are most likely to change jobs around their first, second, or third year anniversary.

entelo more likely to move

To uncover these trends, we reached into Entelo’s database of millions of candidates from all over the world with a background in technical, marketing, sales, and administrative roles.

“For many companies, figuring out how to build a robust team while accelerating employees’ professional growth and preventing turnover is a huge challenge,” said Entelo CEO Jon Bischke. “If managers are looking into the best interest of their candidates, preparing them now for where they want to be in the next five years will help them become better at the job they’re doing today.”

Recruiting, training, and hiring a new employee is said to cost about $4,000. High employee turnover hurts a company’s productivity and can lower morale, but depending what side of the fence you’re on, it’s preventable and can work to the team’s advantage.

Given our report, recruiters and hiring managers can personalize their outreach for candidates who are open to learning more about a new opportunity, and are able to better communicate with their current workforce to improve retention rates.

Reach out to candidates shortly before their work anniversary.

Want to hire talent from the competitors? Try reaching out to candidates several weeks before their first, second, or third year anniversary when they’re more likely to connect and be engaged by your open opportunity. Don’t forget to personalize your messaging to each candidate. Try referring to a recent project they worked on or mentioning a mutual contact in both of your networks.

“Recruiters can strategically plan when they want to reach out to people and entice them to think about making a change when the time is right,” said Loni Spratt, Entelo’s recruiter evangelist. “Outreach response rates should be much better for these people around these times and this allows recruiters to be much more efficient with their outreach.”

Periodically meet with employees to get feedback on their job satisfaction and how the company can improve their employment experience.

Sourcing and hiring the right team member for an opportunity is no easy task, so why let your recruiting efforts go to waste? Frequent communication between employees and hiring managers allows teams to get a better understanding of how the company suits an employee’s expectations and desired career path. Many employees leave their jobs due to dissatisfaction linked to the lack of career advancement, the lack of communication with upper level management, decreased motivation, or a misalignment between the company and employee’s future objectives.

"Where once longevity in a role was seen as an indication of success, now it’s about growing, learning, and stepping up to new challenges. If your company isn’t offering that, your people will leave,” said Katrina Collier, CEO of social recruiting firm Winning Impression.

Maintain employee satisfaction by checking in every six months, providing team members with the chance to discuss their critiques and praises of their experience working with the company. By providing employees with an open forum to share their suggestions and concerns, hiring managers can boost morale and encourage employees to continue contributing to a company that not only values their work, but their career goals and well-being, too.

Collier suggests these tips for improving candidate engagement and reducing employee turnover:

  • Put your people first. Use a tool, like Innermetrix, to gain insight into your teams’ thinking, values and decision making, and to improve your employee engagement and management, as this will reduce churn and increase profitability.

  • Look at your company as if you were a savvy social jobseeker.

  • Assess your online reputation, employer brand and ex-employee reviews, and make improvements.

  • Share genuine insights into who you are and the work you do on both your careers pages and your social channels.

  • Remember to keep it real! 

“By showing employee life as it actually is, warts and all, you will reduce attrition because applicants can choose to proceed or simply opt out, which is far better than the cost of failed recruitment on the bottom line."

What say you? What factors contribute to an employee leaving their current position? How can recruiters better connect with candidates? Share your thoughts in the comments. Don’t forget to check out our eBook on how to improve and personalize your candidate outreach. You can download it here.
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