Rural communities are often taken to be isolated and running behind time. But that’s not the case anymore. These days many rural areas are home to several businesses. Affordable office space, lower taxes, and no parking reasons are the driving forces behind companies opening offices in rural areas.
With time, the sourcing techniques have also become more sophisticated but recruiting in rural areas can still be challenging. These areas with a small talent pool and picking out the best talent can require a little more hard work than usual. But businesses are doing it with exceptional recruitment strategies in rural areas.
If you are looking for the top recruitment strategies for rural areas, our comprehensive guide can prove handy. Let’s check it out.
1. Know the Ideal Candidate You Need
Know about the candidate’s psychographics and demographics. The characteristics, such as gender, age, education level, training, and income are the key demographics. While psychographics refers to the psychological factors influencing a person’s behavior. This can be personality interests, attitudes, values, and lifestyle. Get to know about these to have the best recruiting strategy for rural areas.
For instance, if you are searching for a creative and skilled candidate who takes keen interest in art and culture and outdoor recreation, any young job seeker living in the city but interested in moving to a rural area might be your ideal candidate.
Understanding the psychographics and demographics, you can customize your rural recruitment strategies and hire the best candidate. You can also implement different recruitment strategy for graduates and postgraduates.
2. Provide a Compelling Offer
Before any candidate applies for a job, they want to know what’s in it for them. So, you should show them why they should come and work with you. Show them that you offer faster growth opportunities or focus strongly on work-life balance. Play into your strengths. Try to emphasize the perks that they might not find in any other organization.
You can focus on the location of the company as an added perk. The low living cost, a stronger sense of community, and better schools- anything that makes your rural location stand out.
To get an idea about what pointers make your company better, you can ask your present employees to take part in a survey about working in the company. Ask them what perks they would like you to include. Thereafter, use them to lure new candidates to your organization.
Your company should also value teamwork and communication. Employees should have respect for each other. With a positive work environment, you can attract the best employees in rural areas.
3. Create a Work Environment that is Appealing
Today’s world is highly competitive. To hire and retain the best candidates for your company, you need to create an attractive environment. Here are a few factors that can make your business look more attractive to potential employees-
- Competitive Wages
In rural areas, the number of skilled and talented candidates is relatively smaller. If you don’t pay enough, the most sought-after candidate might take up a job with some other company in the rural area. Competitive wages are one of the best ways to hire candidates in rural areas. It might seem counterintuitive but offering higher wages will make candidates take up the job and shift the rural location. Take advantage of the hiring tools in the market to understand the average compensation for particular skills and roles.
- Work-Life Balance
Often, candidates let go of a job offer in a rural area due to the lack of professional opportunities. So, maintain a work-life balance that will make the candidates feel personally and professionally fulfilled. Offer flexible working arrangements, a supportive community, and give access to professional development opportunities. The professional environment in your company should help your employees thrive both on the personal and professional front.
Improving the hiring process in rural areas can be challenging but if you create a working environment that caters to the demands of the employees, you will have a better chance of attracting top talent.
- Go Beyond Digital
Searching for top candidates through obvious job sites or social media platforms doesn’t always prove to be useful. You have to get creative with your recruitment strategies for rural areas. Take a step further by joining hands with the local colleges, trade schools, universities, industry associations, and more to advertise your job postings.
Getting involved in community events to create awareness about the organization can be of great help. Don’t ignore the local staffing firms. They can bring in candidates that you might not otherwise find. The local staffing forms can show your company in a good light and help you hire quality candidates. Always remember that data-driven recruitment provides numerous benefits.
How can JobsPikr Help Build Your Rural Recruitment Strategy?
To hire the best candidate for your company, you need to understand market trends and labor insights. JobsPikr can help you do that. By using our talent intelligence tool, you can get the data and insights you need to power your rural recruitment strategic initiatives. JobsPikr scans a wide range of data sources for collecting jobs data, derives valuable insights, and delivers them to you.
Our data sets are curated depending on the region so that you understand the workforce. With competitive intelligence implemented in your workforce planning, you can learn about the key hiring trends followed by your competitors.
JobsPikr helps you curate your workforce planning that is more future focussed. We will not disrupt any of your existing processes. We will work with your existing strategies and help in improving them. Therefore, by using what we have to offer, you can learn about the future skill gaps and requirements to learn how the key roles are evolving in the rural areas to hire better.
Final Thoughts
Even though rural hiring can be challenging, you need to be optimistic about the future. With time, rural companies are becoming more creative in terms of their hiring process. So, make sure you focus on the unique advantages your business can offer. It will help in attracting skilled candidates who are looking for an alternative to the urban lifestyle. Using the right recruitment strategy for rural areas, you can thrive and offer good job opportunities to people who want to work in these areas.
Take advantage of JobsPikr talent intelligence tool to formulate a strong recruitment strategy for rural areas. Decide your strategy based on valuable insights like average compensation, top job roles, and in-demand skills for rural locations.
