Finding Your “Unicorn” Perfect Candidate
A lot of employers have big aspirations about finding the perfect candidate. In the recruiting world, we call this perfect candidate a unicorn, and they are about as challenging to find as the animal itself!
You may be saying to yourself, “but unicorns aren’t real?” That’s the point! But don’t take this as a discouraging fact. We recommend you approach your interview process, not looking for your perfect candidate, but one with unicorn potential! As an employer, you can turn a great candidate into your unicorn employee, one that can do everything your practice needs better than you ever imagined possible.
So how do you find these great candidates that can become unicorn employees?
Keep Things Short
Do you find yourself skimming resumes? Well, it is a two-way street. Studies show that candidates spend less than one minute looking at a job description before deciding to apply or not! For example, take a look at this eye-tracking study of job postings shared by LinkedIn. This study shows us the page’s most viewed areas and trends to follow when crafting our job postings to garner great candidates!
Many candidates apply for multiple positions, usually while commuting or between tasks, so they are skimming the job posting to gain a general feel for the practice and determine if it is worth applying. When writing job ads, imatters focuses on keeping the postings short and exciting! Our goal is to create a great first impression of your position and have the candidate say, “I can see myself there.” You want candidates that resonate with the job posting and can see themselves filling the position without putting too much thought into it.
Keep Things Simple
Some employers like to use sophisticated language or jargon in job postings, thinking it will attract only the best performing candidates for the position. However, many candidates, even those educated who may understand the language, can find it off-putting or confusing. A study done by Canva showed that 38% of job ads contained jargon like “team player,” “dynamic,” or “self-starter.” When drafting your description, avoid terms that could reduce your applicant pool. Instead, use easy-to-understand language to increase your applicant pool.
Keep Things Minimal
Listing every possible task or responsibility an employee may take on does not ensure you will find a candidate that can accomplish all of those tasks. Instead, it discourages candidates from applying if they feel like they lack competency in a few items. And if those items are the least important, you may miss the opportunity of your potential unicorn employee from applying. List the essentials of the job requirements and try placing an “additional responsibilities as needed” line item at the bottom.
The primary goal in finding that great candidate is to attract as many candidates as possible. While that may result in more resumes to review, working with a recruiter like imatters can help! We will do an initial review of applicants and share only the most applicable candidates for your review. Through this review and interview process, you can whittle down the candidates based on your practice’s specific needs.
Reach out to our team if you need help crafting the perfect job posting to find your unicorn employee!