The right talent will seldom walk into your organization with an application for a job profile that will best suit your open positions. Your best hires are mostly the candidates, who are passive job seekers or who are probably applying elsewhere. Hence, hiring managers will have to go beyond just ads, job listings and cold calling. Here are a few creative ways that might attract the most suitable talent.

1. Interactive Open House
Job fairs can be intimidating with everyone prepared to grab the most lucrative jobs in blue shirt and tie uniforms along with their strong portfolios. However, interactive open houses where the candidates are not under any pressure to give interviews and can openly talk to experts in the room are better. Such informal mingling sessions can also be packed with informative industry news and trends that may not be readily available on the internet. Such educational settings and meetings will help the candidates to make a clear decision and to get in touch with their preferred organizations. Hiring managers can utilize such informal open houses to answer pertinent questions about the jobs and attract the right talent.

2. Cater to other interests
Whether it’s music or photography in exotic places, the new generation has more to their life than just their careers or jobs. Hence, organizations or managers who are sensitive and cater to employee’s other interests are a big hit among the younger generations. Therefore, if your potential hire is a person who could easily identify as a polymath, then such efforts may definitely play a role in attracting the right candidates.

3. Let your leaders become mentors
The top people in the organization are often the people who can be looked up to, especially for someone who are still struggling to climb the corporate ladder. Get the leaders of your organization to give public speeches, online webinars and get them wherever they can add value. Reaching the top talent in your organization to become a mentor for someone who might be a potential hire is one of the best ways to attract talent. Your future candidates will be well-equipped with the guidance that they may receive once they are in your organization and hence, chances of them taking up a job go up a notch higher.

4. Make it a social media challenge/campaign
Social media challenges are energy drinks for every social media user. These challenges where the participants get to showcase their work and gain social media popularity, are the pulse of many brands. Why not use this new social media craze for your advantage and attract the top talent? Create a hiring campaign where the winners will be shortlisted to meet the senior executives in your organization and are also hired to work on some exciting projects. Hiring managers can take some lessons from MTV jobs and other media organizations that have used this strategy effectively in the past.

5. Create an on-the-job experience for potential hires
Understanding all the aspects of jobs during interviews or in JDs is not really the best way to gauge how an actual day on the job would be like. Crafting a real on-the-job experience for potential candidates will help them to understand most of the difficult aspects of the situation. Some startups are designing such experiences virtually. Hiring managers can not only attract the right talent but also reduce attrition cost of new hires.

6. Add value before hiring
The job negotiation must never look like its one way battle for the applicants. Hiring managers must realize that it’s a bargain on both sides. Hence, try and add value to the candidates whether or not they are approaching you for jobs. Some of the biggest consultancies in the world have preparatory assistance provided to the potential candidates where they are helped with writing resumes, writing cover letters or for the final interviews. This is also an excellent way to make an impression on job seekers signalling that the organization actually cares about their talent.

7. Reach out where your potential candidates are
Social media ads are fine and effective most of the times. But there are more apps besides Facebook, Instagram and Twitter. Use your social media strategy to direct your efforts where your potential hires spend most of their time. If you want some direction, then read about how once Amazon used Tinder to hire.

8. Be vocal about the values that are important to your potential employees are
The youth today is definitely touchy, and at the same time responsible, for the causes they care about. Talking about the reasons that your potential hire is concerned about will make your future employees believe that the organization shares the same values and will be instrumental in bringing about whatever change possible.

The most exciting ways are never too complicated. With such simple and smart tricks, you will find the ‘one’ for your organization.