How to Get Your Shortlist Noticed in a Candidate-Heavy Market

When a client gives you a role to work, you need to do everything in your power to ensure they want to interview your candidates.

But now that there are so many active job seekers on the market, you need to work extra hard to sell your shortlist in to your clients.

In a candidate-heavy, job-short market, you need to present your shortlist in a way that your client can’t help but be interested. Here are some tips on how to make your candidates stand out to your clients…

Call to sell in your shortlist 

Just a few months ago, you could get away with just dropping your client an email with your shortlisted CVs attached, but in a sales-driven market, you need to really sell your candidates to your client – and the most effective way to do this is over the phone.

Before you send over your candidate shortlist by email, call to sell in your candidates so you can get your client excited about them first. That way, when your shortlist hits their inbox, they’ll be looking forward to learning more about them.

Always refer back to the brief 

In reality, it doesn’t matter how amazing your candidates are, if they don’t meet the profile, they’re not who your client has asked for.

Highlighting your shortlist directly in the context of the job profile will ensure you only focus on the qualities your client has said are important for the role.

At this stage, you just want to give the client a flavour of each candidate – they will have the chance to read their CVs later. Reiterate to the client that they specifically asked for the skills and experience you mention – it’s a great way to demonstrate you were listening closely when you took the brief and that you’re prioritising their needs over what you think they want.

Emphasise cultural fit

For clients, finding a candidate who’s a good cultural fit is often just as important as finding someone with the right skills.

So tell your client why your candidates will be a good fit for their team. Try to include things you’ve learned about the business, the particular team the candidate will be joining and also your client if they’re a hiring manager.

Essentially, you’re demonstrating that you’ve listened, that you care about cultural fit and that you know the candidates you’re putting forward well enough to provide insight into their personality.

These are all things that will make your shortlist stand head and shoulders above your competition.

Send a stand-out follow up email

So, you’ve sold in your shortlist and gotten your client excited about your candidates, so now you just need to seal the deal by sending that great follow-up email.

Make sure all CVs are formatted to perfection. In a candidate-short market, your clients will have forgiven a few typos and bad formatting – but now that there’s a wealth of candidates to choose from, sloppy formatting could cost you and your candidate the placement.

Include a short, bullet-pointed summary of each candidate in the body of the email so that your client can see your candidates’ key selling points at a glance (3 points per candidate is perfect).

If you really go the extra mile, include a positive reference from a previous employer along with the CV to really help your candidate stand out in the crowd. In this tough market, it’s extra touches like these that’ll help push your candidate over the line.

The next step in this process is to start prepping your candidate for interview. Download the eBook below to learn how to prep your candidate for guaranteed interview success.