At the most recent Tidewater TechExpo, we presented Top 10 Best Practices in Talent Acquisition for a large group of government contractors doing business in the Fort Belvoir area.

1. Practices For Talent
Acquisition in the Security
Cleared Community

2. Enhancing Your Recruiting
Don’t Whine “I Don’t Have the
with Social Media
Time”…..
There are at least 2 or 3 things you are currently doing
inefficiently that could be done more efficiently

3. Who Are You? Does the
talent even know about
your company?
You have a tough case to present to
the talent community.
Finding and keeping your talents is a
foundation for your contracts.
You are an unknown and you don’t
have the resources that your primes
do.
There are some things you can do:
You can move more quickly and make
a stronger connection with your
candidates.
More opportunities to make a
difference.
Use multitalented individuals.
Allow professionals to be part of
something.

4. LinkedIn Company
Profile
An opportunity to share
your products and services
with your network.
Get you customers to write
recommendations about
you.
Interact with your
followers.
More effective than your
website in community
engagement .

5. Create a Good Summary
on Your Personal LinkedIn
Profile
Using the Summary as a good
place to showcase your
Company’s brand and your
brand as well.
This is something to share with
all of your employees.
This is an area to use your
keywords and the specifics on
what kind of candidates you
are looking for.
You want to keep within three
short paragraphs.
Adding applications like Events
and Slideshare.

6. Participate in the
LinkedIn Groups
Thousands of groups on a variety
of topics from alumni groups to
specific types of professionals.
You can join up to 50 groups to
increase your opportunities to
participate and make
connections.
Participate, comment and
connect, not just advertise.
Think about setting up your own
and maybe an Alumni group.
Use the Settings to control how
much email you get from the
various groups.

7. Client Facing Managers
Everyone in your company is part
of your brand and should emulate
the key values of your brand as
they will be interacting with many
professionals who could be part of
your team.
These will be the people who may
eventually come to work for you or
may know folks that they can
recommend to you.

8. Your Candidate Experience
Remember to build a rapport
with each candidate, to share
with them the benefit of being
part of a smaller company.
Receipts and thank you’s for
application.
Status of applications.
Feedback on the process.
Why they didn’t meet the
requirements and what they
may want to do.
How difficult is it to go through
your application and hiring
process?

9. Job Descriptions
These are advertisements to
entice and inform future talent.
Don’t just copy the contract
requirement.
This is one of the first things
talent will read, make it
interesting, accurate and very
descriptive.
Company details, program
descriptions, culture
environment, how
advancement happens, what
other opportunities are
available – all great places for
search words.

10. Job Boards
Targeted community of
job seekers.
Ability to reach out to
more job seekers than
you can on your own.
Searching and connecting
with key talent – if you
know how to do a search
correctly.
Resume agents.
Statistics for job
descriptions.
Direct advertising.
Brand building.

11. Job Fairs
This is brand building,
getting your name out.
Don’t just talk to “one
kind” of talent.
This is a meet and greet
for the community.
Bring your frontline
managers not just your
recruiters.

12. Employee Referral
Programs
The cost of the program
versus the total cost of
recruiting a professional
for your team.
Be sure that your team
knows the positions and
types of individuals you
are looking for.
Provide the information in
a shareable format – quick
description and link.

13. Alumni Programs
Treating your current
employees well even if they
decide to move on.
Remember: Word of Mouth
( skunk reports )
Keep them in your
employee referral program.
Set up a LinkedIn group for
your alumni, post contract
announcements, new
opportunities

14. Becoming the SME in your
industry
If there is a particular technology
that your company is an expert on,
you need to share this information.
Even if you are not the expert, and
many others are working in the
field, provide updates, comments
and information on the topic.
Twitter
LinkedIn updates and groups
Blogging

15. Setting up a quick blog that
is part of your site that
shares tips & tricks about
your area of expertise.
Builds a following and
increases your Google
search results for your site.

16. Bonus – What are you doing to
attract veterans to your
organization?
Cultivate your current veterans
employees to help you build a
recruitment and support strategy for
veterans
Develop a military friendly posture for
your company. Don’t just say it, do it!
In your job board searches, click “Any
Location” which will pull up many
veterans who will be relocated by the
government.
Make sure your LinkedIn profiles reach
out to military personnel.
Participate in the Military Support
LinkedIn groups by providing advice and
opportunities.
Support the local TAP and ACAP offices.

17. Kathleen Smith
ksmith@clearedjobs.net