Most professionals see themselves as more than just a person with a job. They look at their employment as a career path that develops over time and leads them to more advanced positions requiring greater levels of skill (and earning them a larger salary, in most cases). Professional development is attractive to top job candidates, and talented job seekers are more likely to accept a position with a company that offers opportunities for professional growth and advancement. Creating a career path for the positions your company is trying to fill may help to attract better quality talent and may also help with retention of employees. Some Tips for Career Pathing as a Recruiting Tool Start even before the interview process. Employers that want to incorporate career pathing into their recruiting process need to start with the job description, then spend part of the interview exploring what an individualized career path might look like for a particular candidate. Template: Creating Ideal Candidate Personas – Our free persona template will help you improve your talent acquisition by identifying who your ideal candidates are and how best to reach them. Align the career path with company goals. If you know the company wants to expand in a particular direction, your recruiting, interviewing and onboarding can be geared toward candidates whose career goals dovetail with overall company objectives. Encourage employee participation and regular re-evaluation. Goals change, both for companies and individuals. If you do not spend some time at least every six months to a year checking in to make sure the employee’s career aspirations have not changed and adjusting to both those changes and course corrections in company goals, the career pathing has a very real possibility of getting out of sync with the needs of all involved. Define the company culture as growth-friendly. Despite the fact that most companies would say they want their employees to develop and advance, many aspects of corporate life actively discourage growth by becoming too invested in the status quo. Putting forth observable effort is necessary to proactively encourage growth and development if you expect employees to trust your intentions. Benefits of Career Pathing If your company does not make a path for top talent to advance, skilled employees will likely advance somehow, even if it means leaving your organization. However, there are many benefits for investing in career pathing that make it worth the time, expense, and effort it takes to build the path to advancement into crucial positions within the company. Employees who are on a path of development within an organization are more likely to be satisfied and stay with that organization, so retention is greatly improved with career pathing. Another benefit is that companies can tailor the training and development of employees so that when the employees do advance, they are better prepared for their new position. Internal hires are often more cost effective and strategically advantageous than external hires for an organization. Since career pathing both attracts and fosters retention of talented candidates, it simply makes sense to incorporate career pathing into your talent management strategy. ThriveTRM offers organizations a strong talent management solution that facilitates effective recruitment, onboarding, and career pathing. Schedule a demo to explore what ThriveTRM offers today!