How to Make Your Industry Accessible to New Talent

Meet Maria. She’s got experience in admin and has developed a detail-led mindset. Her working days are spent checking contracts and navigating complex information systems to connect the right people to the right issues.

For a while now, Maria has been feeling stuck and thinks there isn’t much opportunity to grow and develop her skills in her current role.

What she doesn’t realise is that she’s got the right skillset for many entry-level digital roles that could see her flourish.

That’s where talent attraction comes in — to connect the dots between these areas of experience and convince people like Maria to make the jump into a new career stream. And in the process? Allowing you to build a wider pool of potential talent ready to succeed in your organisation.

Whether you’re supporting skill-based hiring, early careers or diverse talent initiatives, our eight tips below will help make your career offering more accessible to a wider range of candidates.

1. Create Industry Newcomer Recruitment Campaigns

A well-targeted advertising campaign makes a big difference. Develop ads and landing pages on your careers website, which provide clear, welcoming information for those new to your sector. This will give the audience lots of compelling reasons to join.

You could include testimonials from other employees who made a switch to your industry, as well as content that shines a light on typical career pathways.

Keep the language simple on these pages and avoid jargon wherever possible, to make sure you don’t intimidate the audience.

2. Reassure Candidates That Experience Isn’t Essential

Candidates may assume they need niche technical skills to apply for certain roles. You can address this concern by emphasising the point that transferable skills matter most.

To do this, use direct messaging like, “You don’t need to be a super-hacker to make a difference in digital.”

Using other phrases such as “full training provided” and “no experience in X required” can also help to ease any initial concerns from the audience.

3. Use Inclusive Imagery

Ever noticed how so many early careers pages feature people smiling directly at the camera?

The implication is that it’s not what you can do right now. It’s about who you are – your potential. This makes these opportunities feel within reach for a wide range of candidates.

Imagery shapes perceptions. Illustrating your ads and landing pages with unfamiliar uniforms, technical tools or niche working environments feeds candidates the message that this isn’t for them.

Instead, showcase neutral imagery that might resonate with the previous experiences of your new candidate audience. That might be putting higher up the page more generic shots of workplace culture, training and collaboration.

Four colleagues having a chat at their desk

4. Highlight Rewards and Incentives

Switching industries is a big step so it’s key to make your offering irresistible. To do this, bring the rewards of the role front and centre. You could lead with things like:

  • A good salary and earning potential
  • Career progression
  • Flexible working patterns
  • Pension contributions
  • Sick pay and holiday entitlement
  • Parental leave packages
  • Excellent job security in a growing sector
  • Performances bonuses
  • Staff discounts, freebies, memberships and learning funds

Salary is clearly an important factor, with a new study revealing that 72% of workers consider this the most important aspect when choosing a job.

However, there has been a big rise in appetite for other benefits such as flexible working in recent years. In fact, the same study showed that 66% of workers would forego a pay rise in order to secure more flexible working arrangements.

5. Promote Skills-Based Hiring

Rather than focusing on industry-specific experience, emphasise transferable skills. Problem-solving, building relationships with customers and leadership skills are sought after in lots of industries.

Frame job descriptions around capabilities rather than past roles and provide examples that candidates can quickly relate to.

6. Showcase Professional Development

Candidates don’t want to feel that they’ll quickly be out of their depth in an alien environment. To ease their worries, explain exactly how they’ll be equipped with the new skills and knowledge need to thrive in a new industry.

A great way to do this is to highlight your training, apprenticeships, and qualification sponsorships. This content can be reinforced with stories of other employees who made the transition and have since built successful careers through these programmes.

7. Provide Strong Support Systems

Starting in a new industry can feel overwhelming, especially for early careers candidates who may have little experience.

You can alleviate this by promoting initiatives such as:

  • Mentorships – Experienced members of the team provide expert guidance to new employees, helping them transition to a new industry.
  • Buddy schemes – Peer support from other colleagues across the organisation. They help newcomers to settle into their new working environment and role.
  • Onboarding processes –Specialised training and Q&A sessions with important members of the team, providing a structured and thorough introduction to an employee’s new role.

Highlighting support networks such as these will demonstrate how you will help newcomers to hit the ground running.

A mentor meets with a new employee at desk

8. Emphasise Your Industry’s Impact

All candidates generally want to find meaningful roles, in which their work has a positive impact on other people. To reflect this desire, consider how your organisation and industry benefits families, communities and the wider world.

The impact you wish to highlight to new talent might not always be obvious, especially if you work in a contentious industry that divides opinion. However, if you consider each of the points below, you’re sure to find initiatives that will inspire candidates.

  • Sustainability – how is your organisation taking steps to minimise negative impacts on the environment?
  • Technological innovation – in what ways are the systems you’re building benefiting the end user?
  • External community impact – what are you doing to help the communities local to your offices or sites?
  • Internal community impact – how is your organisation enriching the lives of its employees?
  • Eliminating inefficiency – how are you saving time and resources?
  • Education and upskilling – how does the training and career development you offer benefit those in the early stages of a new career?

Making Your Industry More Accessible

Tactics like these have helped many of our clients appeal to broader audiences. This has allowed them to source the right talent for apprentice and graduate programmes and meet skills shortages in areas like cyber and digital.

If you’re looking for support with attracting new talent into less considered industries, please get in touch with our experts today.