Find Your Best Employees by Taking Advantage of Low Unemployment Rates

I've spoken here before on how to hire when the unemployment rate is low, and since then the unemployment rate has continued to fall.

While the low unemployment rate is overall great news for the economy, it tends to make employers a little uncomfortable because they believe low unemployment makes hiring more difficult.

Does the low unemployment rate make hiring more difficult?

Well, I'm here to tell you that this just isn't the case. In fact, I believe that in a way, a low unemployment rate could be a blessing for most employers.

Now before you roll your eyes at that statement too much let me do a little bit of explaining about how I came to this conclusion.

What are some benefits for job seekers in finding a new job?

A low unemployment rate gives job seekers, currently employed people, a newfound sense of confidence in approaching their career paths. Because it's become so ‘easy' to find a new position people are viewing it as an opportunity to take a risk and attempt to level up from their current job position.

These job seekers see that all of the employers are currently hard up for skilled workers and they may be willing to take a chance on a slightly less experienced resume to fill their empty positions. They may even be able to finally change industries like they have been wanting to because the risk for job seekers is so low.

So now that you know a little bit about how job seekers, and currently employed people are thinking, let's talk about how you can take advantage of a low unemployment rate to find your next best employees.

4 Steps to Leveraging Low Unemployment to Find Your Best Employees

• 1. Identify your target market.

  Segment your job seeker target market down to people who are currently employed who are looking to leave their current employment for a different work opportunity.

• 2. Understand your target market.

  What are the job seeker's goals, what are their pains and what will drive them to leave the job they're at to come work for you?

• 3. Change your job ad.

  Your job ad needs to give applicants a reason to leave their current job for your better job opportunity.

• 4. Make applying easy.

  Reduce the friction for your job seekers when applying for a job with your company.

Now that you've left behind the old mindset of "a low unemployment rate means trouble for employers", it's time to start implementing these 4 steps to finding great employees. I've put together a little tool that can help! After you've completed step 1 and are looking to understand that target market go ahead and fill out my job seeker persona worksheet. This worksheet will help you get a better sense of who your target market is and how they think so you can complete step 3 and write a job ad that they will care about.

Start today in leveraging low unemployment to find your best employees!