How to Get Better at Finding, Attracting and Retaining Talent for Your Organization?

Improving your hiring process begins with understanding where your team stands today. Once you have that clarity, the question becomes: how to attract talent that not only fills roles but also drives long-term success? The encouraging news is that, regardless of where you are, there are meaningful actions you can take immediately to strengthen your hiring process. The key is to focus on small, intentional changes that create momentum and lead to long-term impact.

At Simplicant, we’ve identified four core competencies that define hiring excellence:

Together, these competencies provide the foundation for a more strategic approach to talent acquisition.

In this article, we’ll take a closer look at the first and most crucial step—how to attract and retain top talent. You’ll find practical recommendations designed by Simplicant experts to help your team become more effective, more consistent, and ultimately more successful in building the workforce your business needs to thrive.

Why is it Essential to Find and Attract the Right Talent

Attracting the right talent goes far beyond filling open roles—it’s about securing the people who will fuel your company’s growth. Understanding how to attract employees who are both skilled and aligned with your culture is critical in today’s competitive job market.

The candidate journey begins the moment someone lands on your career page. From how you showcase your brand and values to the clarity of your job postings, every detail influences whether top professionals choose to engage with your organization. A seamless, user-friendly application process makes it easier for qualified candidates to apply, while consistent communication throughout the hiring journey ensures they feel valued and respected.

Organizations that invest in these practices not only strengthen their reputation as an employer of choice but also build a reliable path for recruiting top talent. As companies advance along the Hiring Maturity curve, they adopt more intentional strategies—refining behaviors, tools, and processes that transform hiring from a reactive function into a sustainable competitive advantage.

1. Organization Branding & Overall Application Experience

The key to finding top talent is by ensuring your organization has the best to offer than any other competitor. And to achieve that you should focus on branding and overall application experience of your candidates.

● Build a Strong Employer Brand Through Your Career Page

Your career page is often the first point of contact candidates have with your organization. A polished, easy-to-navigate and branded career page communicates professionalism and makes a strong first impression. Even small updates—like ensuring applicants don’t have to leave your website to apply—can significantly improve the candidate experience and support long-term hiring success.

● Create a Frictionless Application Process

Complicated application processes are one of the fastest ways to lose great candidates. Instead of asking applicants to create accounts or retype their resume details, focus on a simple, streamlined experience. Make sure your applicant tracking system allows easy resume uploads, customization options, and the

flexibility to post across multiple job boards and locations. These small adjustments are exactly how to attract qualified candidates in a competitive hiring market.

● Align Branding Across the Candidate Journey

Employer branding doesn’t stop at your career page. Think about the entire application journey: what does you thank-you email say after a candidate applies? How quickly do they receive interview confirmations? Every communication touchpoint should reflect your company’s values and culture, reinforcing why your organization is the right choice. Tracking candidate quality by source also helps refine your talent attraction strategies over time.

● Establish Best Practices for Candidate Communication

Consistency is critical when it comes to candidate experience. Formalize best practices for hiring employees, such as internal SLAs for communication and clear updates at every stage of the process. Keeping candidates informed builds trust, strengthens your reputation, and ensures that even those who aren’t hired leave with a positive impression of your brand.

Read more: 10 proven candidate sourcing strategies to attract top talent

2. Drive Employee Engagement in the Hiring Process

Your employees are more than team members—they’re brand ambassadors who can play a critical role in hiring the best talent. By involving them directly in recruitment, you expand your reach, create stronger candidate pipelines, and build a culture where hiring is everyone’s responsibility.

● Build a Structured Referral Program

Referral programs are one of the most effective approaches to how to hire top talent quickly and cost-efficiently. To maximize impact, document the submission process and make it simple for employees to share potential candidates. With the right software, referrals can be tracked automatically, ensuring transparency and consistency.

● Offer Incentives for Referrals

Rewards motivate participation and make referrals part of everyday culture. Whether it’s a cash bonus, exclusive perks, or company-branded giveaways, incentives act as creative ways to attract employees through your current workforce while reinforcing engagement.

● Encourage Internal Mobility

Internal hiring is a proven way to attract and retain talent while reducing costs. Share open roles with current employees, create clear processes for career moves, and highlight success stories of internal promotions. This not only supports long-term retention but also shows employees that their growth is a company priority.

● Track KPIs and Celebrate Success

Every great strategy needs measurement. Formalize KPIs around referral hires, internal moves, and participation rates. Sharing these results in all-hands meetings reinforces the importance of employee-driven recruiting and demonstrates the value of effective recruiting practices.

3. Attract Job Seekers and Engage Passive Candidates

To succeed in today’s competitive market, companies need more than job postings. A mix of proactive outreach, technology alignment, and strong branding is key to building pipelines that reach both active job seekers and passive candidates. Effective candidate sourcing strategies can ensure your talent pool is always ready to meet hiring needs.

Further reading: A Guide on the Best Ways to Attract Quality Hires

● Take a Proactive Sourcing Approach

Don’t wait for applicants to find you—actively target hard-to-fill roles. Utilize free and premium job boards, social networks, and industry-specific platforms to expand your reach. Being proactive not only broadens visibility but also demonstrates top talent recruitment as a priority for your organization.

● Improve Existing Talent Base

Your existing database is an often-overlooked asset. Revisit past applicants, engage with prospects who showed interest but never applied, and maintain communication with passive candidates. This ongoing effort ensures you know how to attract quality candidates when new opportunities arise.

● Align & Optimize Your Tech Stack

Disconnected systems can hold back hiring efficiency. Ensure that all your sourcing tools integrate seamlessly with your talent acquisition platform. From LinkedIn sourcing tools to event-based applications, technology should simplify and support recruiting and talent acquisition, not complicate it.

● Expand Your Future Talent Pool

Not every visitor to your career page will find a role that matches today—but they could be a perfect fit tomorrow. Offer a way for candidates to join your talent community without applying to a specific position. This builds a pipeline of passive and active candidates who can be re-engaged when the right opportunity arises. Tools like Simplicant make this process seamless by capturing candidate data and enabling ongoing outreach.

4. Build Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion into Talent Strategy

DE&I isn’t just an initiative—it’s a core part of modern employee attraction and retention. A diverse, inclusive workplace not only strengthens culture but also makes your organization more competitive when it comes to hiring and retaining top talent.

● Set Clear DE&I Goals

The first step is creating a framework. Appoint an executive sponsor to guide the process and ensure accountability. By setting measurable goals, you build the foundation for a long-term strategy that goes beyond compliance and drives sustainable talent attraction.

● Leverage Recruitment Technology

Technology plays an essential role in embedding DE&I into recruiting. Modern platforms allow you to highlight inclusive practices, track progress, and make DE&I visible across the hiring journey. This ensures that the commitment is more than words—it becomes part of your everyday recruitment process and answers the question, “What is talent attraction in practice?”

Read more: Why Every Recruiter Needs Applicant Tracking Software Now More Than Ever

● Train your Talent Teams

Inclusive hiring requires consistency and awareness. Provide training for recruiters and hiring managers, encourage employee resource groups (ERGs), and set specific goals for representation in your workforce. These practices define how to attract and retain talented employees by ensuring every candidate feels valued throughout the process.

● Encourage Reporting & Continuous Learning

Transparency builds trust. Regularly report progress on DE&I metrics, share updates in company-wide forums, and adapt strategies as you grow. The most successful organizations approach DE&I as a

continuous journey—constantly evolving and improving to create an environment that attracts and supports diverse talent.

Conclusion

Improving hiring doesn’t happen overnight—it requires focus, commitment, and consistency. Before diving in, take a step back and reflect on whether recruiting the best talent is your team’s most critical priority right now. If it is, start small by choosing one or two strategies from this guide, set clear goals, and measure progress along the way.

Remember to celebrate both the small wins and the major milestones, as each step brings you closer to building a stronger hiring function and attracting and retaining employees who will fuel your organization’s long-term success.

Ready to transform how you source and hire top talent?

Book a demo with Simplicant and see how we help you attract, engage, and convert high-quality candidates — smarter and faster. Or contact us directly at marketing@simplicant.com to get started.