Job Benefits That Attract Quality Candidates

This year, unemployment in the United States has dropped at an all-time 3.8% low. Given how shallow the manpower pool has suddenly become, hiring managers are finding it difficult to secure quality skills and talent that can help augment various crucial areas of their business and day to day operations. Companies must look at more revolutionary ways to draw in high-level prospects and one of the most effective is to provide irresistible work benefits. Here are 5 of the most sought-after benefits of applicants:

Job Benefits That Attract Quality Candidates

1) Flexible Working Hours
Headhunters for higher education administration have found out that flexible hours have the ability to convince nearly 90% of applicants to opt with a work that provides a lower salary but has flexible working hours over a job that offers a bigger rate but has a rigid working time frame. As a matter of fact, higher education recruitment agencies believe that it is the number one most sought-after benefit next to health insurance. This kind of perk is especially attractive to millennials and working parents.

2) Health Insurance
Academic recruiters who allow their staff to feel some level of security through health insurance can recruit the best quality prospects at a more efficient rate. Workers put a premium on health insurance and how it can aid them in covering different medical bills. And if you put into account the fact that the average wage earner in the US spends a total of more than ten thousand dollars in health care costs, its no surprise why 9 out of 10 employees today want to secure a work that will give them the best possible health insurance program.

3) Retirement Package
Based on a study conducted by education recruiting firms, you need to have more than $730,000 to live comfortably in your retirement days. For this reason, your company will become an instant magnet for top-notch talent if it offers decent retirement benefits. The popular 401(K) plan is typically the retirement package of choice for the majority of companies although there are some who follow their own version. In the end, retirement packages are advantageous to workers and to the company as well since it provides tax breaks for every made contribution.

4) Life Insurance Programs
We think of our families and their well-being all the time and we want them to be financially secured the moment we pass away from this world without notice. Higher education recruitment agencies discovered that almost 60% of employees believe that life insurance is not just crucial but integral to their work as well. When it comes to life insurance to employees, Google is in a whole new level of greatness. The tech giant has its own brand of life insurance for its workers that give their spouses half of their wages for a full decade in the event of death.

5) Perks for improved well-being
Nowadays, workers are increasingly putting more weight on their personal well-being. For this reason, plenty of companies today add health and wellness perks to their worker’s benefits program. As a matter of fact, almost 9 out of 10 company owners today already have their own kind of health and wellness system in place. These include company-owned fitness centers and discounts for gym memberships.

Make your Benefits Program more attractive!
If your company is finding it hard to obtain elite talent, you may want to evaluate its existing benefits to employees as it may be a complete turnoff to prospects especially the cream of the crop. The current data and numbers are already supporting the notion that the majority of today’s job seekers will favor favorable benefits over high compensating jobs. With all that being said, consider offering potential employees the 5 benefits mentioned above and your HR department will surely see an unprecedented floodgate of resumes.

Vincent Scaramuzzo is the President of Ed-Exec, Inc. A leading Education Executive Search Firm. He is also a contributing author to various education publications. As a specialist in Academic Search for over a decade, Scaramuzzo works nationally. He can be contacted at vincent@ed-exec.com 860-781-7641.