Attract

‘Attract’ is about targeting and attracting candidates who share your workplace vision and values.

Think about different approaches for targeting and attracting a more diverse range of staff to work for you. This may include older or retired staff, staff with no care work experience, staff from abroad, neurodiverse staff and many other groups of people who may not have previously considered working in care.

The benefits of this are:

• a larger pool of potential recruits
• a more diverse workforce which accurately reflects those drawing on care and support.

Individual employers can watch our 'Attract - Advertising your roles to people who share your values' video to learn more about finding the right personal assistant for them.

We have more information about targeting different groups of people on our 'Widen your talent pool' page.

Attracting candidates who share your values:

How can you target and attract candidates who share your values?

1. Identify current staff who share your workplace values and are great at their jobs. What recruitment channels did you use to recruit them? How can you use different recruitment methods to attract more staff with similar values and behaviours?

2. Find ways to actively target people underrepresented in your workforce who share your workplace values using different recruitment channels.

3. Share your values and what makes your culture unique in your adverts, social media posts, open days and any recruitment activities you plan.
4. Use a refer a friend scheme, such as Care Friends, to encourage existing staff to refer a more diverse range of staff who they believe share your workplace values.

Resources and templates

Here are some resources to enable you to analyse how effectively you're attracting staff who share your workplace values, plan areas for improvement and know what to do to put those plans in place.

Take the quiz: could you work in adult social care?

A mobile-friendly quiz developed by the Department of Health and Social Care, this quiz will help those new to the sector decide if care is right for them.

Made with Care campaign toolkit and social media assets

The national recruitment campaign from the Department of Health and Social Care includes resources and templates to help you attract staff.

Using social media for care recruitment

Social media provides a wealth of opportunities to attract people from a variety of backgrounds and demographics. This series of videos covers everything you need to know to optimise your social media usage.

Care Friends

The Care Friends employee referral app launched in partnership with Skills for Care to support finding and retaining high quality care staff.

Learning from others

Ensuring your values-based recruitment is neuro-inclusive

Write your job adverts in plain English, avoiding jargon or too much unnecessary information. This helps avoid any confusion. You can use the Readable tool to check the readability of your advert.

Consider adding the following statement to your adverts:

‘We are committed to providing disabled and neurodivergent applicants with any reasonable adjustments or accommodations needed. Therefore, please let us know if you require any reasonable adjustments as part of the recruitment or interview process. We are very happy to help and can make suggestions if you are unsure about what is available.’

When creating a new job advert, ask yourself:

• Is the advert clear and concise?
• Are key details like working hours, salary and expected skills clear and easy to understand?
• Is the advert clearly presented and free of complex language?
• Are the listed essential skills actually essential?

Good examples of neuro-inclusive job adverts can be found at auticon.com and geniuswithing.org.

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