It’s great to find consultants who can get the job done. But as with any top talent, the best consultants have other traits that are valuable to the success of a project. They possess confidence, persistence, and a problem-solving mindset – and they know exactly how to get the best results quickly.
But recruitment teams will agree that it’s not easy to find and hire top-tier consultants. The best ones are hard to come by and snapped up quickly. Plus, when a top consultant is in demand, they can pick and choose who they want to work with.
How do you make sure the best consultants choose to work with you?
Tips for attracting top consultants for your team
1. Develop a solid brand identity
Highly-skilled professionals will research companies before deciding whether or not to work with them. This applies not just to permanent employees, but to consultants as well. If your brand has a great reputation, high-performing consultants will be eager to offer you their services and have you as their client.
What is your company’s mission? What core company values do you hold high? Are your employees dynamic, ambitious, and successful? What are your achievements? What is your work culture like? Experienced professionals will look for this information on your website, on social media, and from people who have worked with you before.
Like attracts like – having a strong employer brand identity will attract the right person for your firm. If your business can articulate its brand identity – not just on the pages of your website, but in activities marketing your business as a great place to work, they will more easily see how they will fit in and how they can help your business achieve its goals.
2. Describe the opportunity clearly
Top consultants want to know that their expertise will be of great value to the companies they work for. There are a few ways that your talent acquisition team can help the ideal candidate figure this out.
Present the opportunity favorably in your recruitment marketing strategy. A contract professional often pursues interesting opportunities that can bolster their career development and personal development.
When you are clear about your project’s goals and its role within the mission of your business, you are likely to inspire job seekers who are clear about the skills and value that they can bring to clients and keen on career growth.
Are you seeking expert talent to establish efficient processes and procedures, or do you need an articulate negotiator to inspire your leadership team to make the right choices? Be clear about your needs and the right candidate will respond to your job ad.
Describe the resources and support that will be made available to them. Be transparent about the challenges they may face. A clear description of the assignment along with contextual details are attractive to the best talent. Not only does it give candidates a clearer picture of what you need, but also it indicates that you’ll be a client that communicates clearly and transparently.
3. Create an efficient onboarding process
Have your talent acquisition team develop an efficient onboarding process. A smooth onboarding process sets a positive experience from the start. Although this part happens after your hire a consultant, it makes it easier to maintain contact with your best contractors and lays a foundation for future opportunities should they return to work with you.
Independent professionals value an onboarding process that provides clear information about what to expect when engaging with your team, important points of contact, assignment goals and objectives, the tools and programs they’ll work with, and painless administrative processes like automated payment options. Perfecting the onboarding process may be a bit of an effort at first but will result in great benefits for recruitment teams in the long run.
4. Make your hiring process efficient
The best consultants don’t sit around waiting for work. It’s more likely that they’ll have clients in the pipeline and move on to the next project as soon as their current one’s done. That means two things for the recruitment team: have an efficient hiring process and make the application process as painless as possible.
Remember that the great candidates you shortlisted won’t wait around if a better opportunity comes along. In a highly competitive skills market, it’s important that you respond quickly to applications, give candidates feedback after interviewing them, be clear about the next steps, have an efficient screening process in place, and most of all, don’t take too long to select your expert. The more quickly you make a decision, the better your chances of success in acquiring the best candidate before someone else does.
5. Offer compelling salaries and benefits
If you want the best talent, then you’ll need to make an attractive proposition.
Offering competitive rates for consulting services will make it easier for a top candidate to choose your project. Be sure to align your payment rates with market standards and include additional benefits to make your opportunity more enticing.
Consider what career independent contractors value most when deciding what benefits to offer. Employers typically expect contractors in the market to work the same hours as employees, but allowing them to set their own schedules can be very beneficial.
Additionally, professionals in the consulting industry often have to deal with unpredictable payment schedules. There are some clients who pay within a few weeks, and there are some who take up to six months to pay for consulting services. As owners of their own business, this is a challenge that affects their professional and personal lives. Instant payments and reimbursements will go a long way in enticing top talent to work with you and come back in the future.
6. Seek help from consulting firms
Besides using your in-house recruitment department to attract and retain the best talent, turning to consulting firms to help you is probably a good investment for hiring your ideal consultant.
Among the many advantages of using a consulting business to help you find highly-skilled talent is the time you save from waiting for candidates to reply to your job ad. As experts in the industry, a consulting firm will also be up-to-date with the latest trends and give you insight into what expert talent are looking for.
Choose a consulting firm that specializes in finding talent for your particular industry or pain point – if you need a tech expert, a consulting firm with a focus on tech talent will help you recruit one in no time. Specialist consulting firms are well connected to the relevant talent pool and will be able to connect you with top independent contractors for your business quickly.
