How To Attract Top Talent in a Competitive Market

August 12, 2025

Nearly 50% of APAC organizations lean on a contingent workforce to address talent gaps — and it’s not just a temporary blip. The competition for skilled talent, particularly in high-demand sectors such as IT, engineering, and healthcare, remains steady. That makes attracting the right candidates a long game.

Businesses that can’t fill critical roles risk idling innovation and projects, while burning out existing teams. Meanwhile, top talent — the kind that brings critical skills, adaptability, and long-term value — isn’t just looking for a job. These candidates know their worth, weighing growth potential and alignment with their goals. Talent acquisition strategies need to reflect this. 

In this article, we’ll explore the top 10 proven strategies to attract top talent and how recruitment process outsourcing (RPO) provides access to dynamic resources, enabling organizations to build resilient, future-ready teams. 

10 Proven Strategies To Attract Top Talent

Recruiting skilled talent requires a focused, practical approach in 2025. While 63% of employers say it’s harder to source great talent than it was last year, 70% of candidates say it’s harder to find a job. These figures reflect a discord in talent-to-organization match-making. 

Here are 10 strategies RPO experts use to help businesses transform talent acquisition into a sustainable, long-term game and secure high-quality talent in the market. 

1. Build a Strong Employer Brand

As far as talent is concerned, your reputation precedes you. Accordingly, employer branding refers to a company’s reputation, value proposition, and experience — three factors potential candidates are already contemplating before they get a foot in the door. 

In the same way that an organization evaluates an applicant’s soft skills and culture fit, candidates also assess a brand’s purpose, team cohesion, and employee experience to determine whether an employer aligns with their values. They’re checking places like company career pages and online review sites to see how visibly a business supports DEIB, sustainability, and innovation. 

Here’s what you should be thinking about: 

• Reputation: Communicating values isn’t enough. Organizations also need to demonstrate them in the market to build a positive reputation.
• Value proposition: The employer’s value proposition outlines expectations for performance and behavior, as well as the rewards for meeting these expectations. 
• Employee experience: When employees understand and meet an employer’s expectations (and are rewarded accordingly), they’re more likely to view their experience as a positive one.

RPO experts can help unify these elements across all touchpoints, ensuring a company’s employer brand shows up consistently wherever talent is searching. 

2. Optimize Job Descriptions

The most obvious reason to write compelling job descriptions is to attract higher-quality applicants and reduce misunderstandings. Knock-on benefits include enhanced visibility, faster time to hire, and improving the applicant experience by setting clear expectations and providing accurate information. But there’s more to the story. 

Candidates tend to submit resumes that directly respond to a job description. Yet, only 48% of U.S. employers say resumes are an effective way to determine a candidate’s capabilities. More than half (53%) of employers have eliminated degree requirements in job listings, while 85% are leaning into skills-based hiring — this may involve an assignment or skills test during the recruitment process to evaluate actual compatibility with a role. 

In line with these broader talent acquisition trends, RPO partners support organizations in developing job descriptions that use inclusive, high-impact language, appealing to a more diverse talent pool. They embed employer branding in job postings to attract candidates who align with the company culture. More importantly, they help businesses evaluate and communicate the type of skills demonstration required upfront, increasing the quality of applicants from the beginning. 

3. Offer Competitive Compensation and Benefits

Compensation still matters most. In 2025, salary and bonuses rank as top decision-making factors for 87% of candidates, alongside healthcare (88%). Beyond the paycheck, candidates seek benefits that align with their lifestyle and work environment. This could mean: 

• A competitive salary that ticks up with inflation.
• Family-friendly policies.
• Location flexibility.
• Transparent pay bands.
• Mental health support.

RPO teams provide insights into regional and global salary benchmarks across industries and roles. This data makes it possible to build strategic and competitive compensation packages that reflect the talent you need and the budgets you’re working with.

4. Promote DEIB

Diversity, equity, and inclusion have been making headlines in recruitment strategy for years — and it’s widely agreed that they are effective ways to foster innovation and productivity. Around 60% of APAC organizations plan to increase DEI spending in the next two years. Even so, past efforts have failed to foster a sense of workplace ‘belonging,’ resulting in continued low levels of employee engagement. 

In the APAC region, the challenges of DEIB are complex. Organizations must account for unique regional contexts to cater to nuanced, culturally appropriate, country-specific DEIB needs. In short, what works in one place may not work in the next — further complicating inclusion initiatives among companies with global talent engagement. 

For instance, in China, generational diversity is a major concern. In Singapore, the focus is on multiculturalism. Australia is struggling to close the gender pay gap, while Japan needs to increase female leadership to meet its targets. Well-versed in regional DEIB variations, RPO experts can help businesses determine how DEIB performs within their respective organizational frameworks and formulate a hiring strategy that responds to internal and regional gaps. 

5. Improve the Candidate Experience

From the first job ad to the final offer and beyond — including onboarding and continued support — every touchpoint contributes to candidate engagement. Speed and transparency are key to delivering a positive experience. 

The global median time-to-hire is 38 days, and artificial intelligence (AI) makes recruiting processes 26% faster. The impact of this relationship on hiring outcomes is evident in Australia, with a median time-to-hire of 32 days and recruitment efficiency 78% above the global average (based on the number of hires per recruiter per month). 

Beyond AI, RPO talent professionals bring an entire suite of recruitment tech to the table, helping organizations automate applicant analysis, tap into candidate feedback loops, and build a data-driven recruiting process. 

6. Use Employee Referral Programs

Employees are central to driving and maintaining organizational success. In 2025, referral programs remain a high-performing strategy, delivering turnaround 55% faster than job boards. 

People trust people — and that goes two ways. When it comes to vouching for a company’s employee experience, its employees are the most reliable sources, carrying more weight than careers pages. On the other hand, trusted employees have access to deep pools of talent in their professional networks. They’ll likely offer a more rounded view of a candidate they know personally than what you might derive from a resume or interview. 

Despite the clear advantage, only 3% of Australian hires are sourced through referrals, which is less than half of the global average of 7%. Talent acquisition professionals can help formalize and scale these programs by implementing incentives, tracking, and follow-up to maintain a steady flow of high-quality referrals.

7. Leverage Social Media and Employer Review Platforms

Social media is a strategic recruitment marketing asset that delivers dividends in talent acquisition. Talent leaders can review strategies to enhance employer branding, but also leverage qualitative data to learn about company culture, management effectiveness, and operational inefficiencies. 

These reviews can also impact: 

• Candidate acceptance rates: A slew of positive online reviews may make the difference for a qualified candidate weighing multiple offers. 
• Enhanced employer brand: Review management signals transparency and commitment to employee well-being. 
• Higher employee retention: Review platforms provide a mechanism for soliciting and acting upon feedback from employees, making them feel valued and heard. 

Recruitment tech can also track engagement, refine messaging based on performance, and directly link social activity to sourcing outcomes.

8. Engage Passive Candidates

Not all quality candidates are actively seeking positions. Passive candidate numbers now make up 70% of the workforce. These professionals aren’t actively applying for jobs — but they’re open to change if the right opportunity presents itself. In 2025, attracting this group is essential to building a competitive talent pipeline.

Passive candidates expect personalized communication, a clear value proposition, and roles that align with their goals. They want a reason to engage — and fast.

A talent acquisition team brings structure and scalability to this process, using talent mapping, market insights, and long-term pipeline development to identify, engage, and convert passive candidates. This strategy reduces time-to-fill and improves the quality of hires. It also gives businesses access to skills that aren’t readily available through traditional sourcing.

9. Offer Flexible and Remote Work Options

Flexible work models expand your talent pool. They’re also becoming a baseline expectation in APAC, with 68% of companies employing 70% of their workforce as full-time remote workers. This not only opens the doors to global talent acquisition but also improves employee satisfaction. 

However, designing and rolling out a flexible work strategy isn’t straightforward. In the APAC region, remote and hybrid models present new challenges for employees. They include:

• Household member disruptions (62%).
• Feeling constantly connected to work (52%).
• Missing social contact and interactions (43%).
• Lack of physical activity (38%).

Organizations need the muscle and strategy to support flexible arrangements, thereby curbing the loss of productivity and burnout. RPO providers help employers adapt and respond to challenges, as well as leverage flexible work arrangements. Operationalizing flexibility involves refining job design, incorporating location-neutral roles, and building remote-ready recruitment processes — from virtual recruitment to fostering a positive company culture digitally.

10. Invest in Learning and Development

The best candidates want progression. They’re asking what their career will look like beyond the first six months. Businesses need to be ready to answer questions about career growth — and deliver. 

Those who invest in learning and development experience higher application and retention rates, as well as stronger internal mobility. Companies can differentiate themselves by designing programs that build both technical capabilities and the human skills needed to lead and adapt, including:

• Upskilling and technical development.
• Leadership programs.
• Clear progression paths.
• Soft skill development.

RPO teams help employers integrate progression pathways into their recruitment processes. They position learning and development as a core part of the value proposition, and use internal data to match existing employees to future roles, creating a pipeline of talent ready for growth.

How Envision RPO Helps Companies Attract Top Talent

At Envision RPO, we have a team of recruitment process outsourcing experts to help you build a tailored, flexible, and scalable talent acquisition strategy based on your hiring needs and labor market. Our specialists embed seamlessly into your corporate culture and act as an extension of your organization. We help build your employer brand, achieve a faster time-to-fill, and secure exceptional talent. Here’s how:

End-to-End RPO

Our end-to-end RPO services handle the entire hiring journey — from sourcing and screening to interviews and onboarding. You get a dedicated team that integrates into your business, accelerates time-to-hire, and deploys a data-backed strategy — without placing pressure on internal teams.

Talent Acquisition Consulting

Talent acquisition consulting brings market insights, process improvements, and tech recommendations that align your recruitment strategy with business goals. Fill niche, executive, and high-volume positions while reducing acquisition costs. 

Ready To Attract Better Talent?

Today’s market is tight, and organizations need a dynamic strategy to attract, secure, and retain talent over the long term. With years of experience and expertise under our wing, Envision RPO can seamlessly integrate into your business and operate as a part of your talent function to help you strategically secure the talent your business needs to thrive.Ready to elevate your recruitment game? Contact Envision RPO.