Recruiting best-in-class talent is essential for small business owners and hiring managers who want to achieve their business objectives.
As such, it’s important to create a strong hiring and recruitment process that will ultimately help you grow your organisation and achieve your goals.
While traditional practices such as accurately researching applicants, conducting in-depth interviews and providing background checks are still used today, there are more advanced approaches employers can use to recruit the best talent.
As recruitment specialists, we know firsthand what works and what doesn't in the hiring process. All too often we see companies miss out on top talent because they take too long to make a decision or aren't willing to dedicate the amount of time needed to ensure the candidate is the best person for the job.
Below we've outlined some key advice for improving your current process.
Optimise Your Job Descriptions
The first step of the hiring process is writing out your requirements.
It's important to make sure that you have a clear idea of your ideal candidate before you begin the hiring process. In order to know exactly who you need, you'll need to have a good understanding of the role requirements and objectives.
By clarifying this in a detailed job description, you will be in a good position to find the best candidate for the role.
A job description will likely be the first interaction a candidate has with your organisation and it therefore provides a first impression of your brand and culture.
You want to ensure that the job description accurately represents your company as well as clearly defining the role responsibilities and requirements. Explain exactly what you are looking for in a candidate and what they can expect to receive in return.
For example:
JOB TITLE, LOCATION/HYBRID, SALARY
Want to work for an employer that invests in cutting-edge technology? Working for one of the most digitally advanced companies in the finance sector, your Power BI Skills will be at the forefront of the ERP System (Microsoft 365 Business Central), data sets, and data analysis.
This company has a complex, large set-up with many businesses within the group and a diverse workforce – and the ERP reporting is yours to manage. There are global data sources and cutting-edge tech tools including the new Microsoft Fabric.
You will be joining a company where people are passionate and forward-thinking and the group company grows annually, creating more opportunities for you.
Hybrid working is the norm and you would be going into the office where most of the ERP team is based in London. There are great company benefits with continued learning, access to training, tools and development, oh, and 1.30pm Friday finishes company-wide.
If you have strong Power BI skills and understand ERP finance data – and want somewhere to continue learning, improving your skills, and be on the latest technology, whilst making a huge difference – please apply.
INCLUDE FULL LIST OF BENEFITS
Advertise The Role Effectively
Finding the right talent for a job opening can be a tricky and time-consuming task, but there are strategies to make the hiring process more efficient. One important part of recruiting is to advertise and promote the open job position.
Advertising your job opportunity on your company’s careers page, on multiple job boards, through job fairs, and through social media sites like LinkedIn can help increase visibility of the position and share it with the target talent pool who may not have seen the listing elsewhere.
Many people also recommend having employees put out word about an open position within their own networks to gain greater exposure and potentially bring in better applicants for consideration.
Though it is important to cast a wide net when recruiting, businesses that want to create a good strategy should first take some time to analyse their needs as well as broader goals and objectives before actively seeking out potential candidates.
It helps to identify any critical roles that need filling as well as what expansion or reductions in staff may have been planned in order to make sure they are getting quality applicants who will fit into both short-term and long-term plans. By taking time now to create an effective recruitment strategy, businesses are setting themselves up for better success now and into the future.
Thoroughly Review Candidate CVs and Applications
When it comes to analysing CVs, cover letters, and applications for suitable candidates, a strategic approach is essential. To start, allocate one or more personnel to review the applications and further narrow down your viable candidates - this will be far easier if you invest in a reliable applicant tracking system (ATS). With an ATS, you can easily filter out information that’s irrelevant to your hiring needs as it can quickly pick up any flaws in the process.
Moreover, the software gives recruiters and hiring managers an idea of how well each applicant fits with their employer’s wishes and needs too. It does this by highlighting important keywords from resumes that might help them weed out unsuitable applicants.
Nevertheless, tools like these should not be relied upon solely as they cannot make wise decisions about who should be hired – ultimately those decisions have to come from live meetings with possible employees.
Efficiency is Key - Speed Up Your Screening
In order to optimize the recruitment process, recruiters must consider speeding up the time-intensive screening stage. This is a vital step in the hiring pipeline as it involves reviewing thousands of resumes, creating and conducting assessment tests, shortlisting your applicants and scheduling and taking interviews.
While you want to be thorough, you must also be quick. As above, technology can support in helping you speedily screen candidates. If you are using a recruitment agency, this should also speed up the process hugely as the agency will be conducting the screening for you.
Ensure you are in constant communication with all applicants, keep them updated on the process and get them booked in for interviews quickly. Do not allow weeks to pass between recruitment stages or candidates will lose interest or accept another role.
Additionally, to make this process more efficient, recruiters should implement structured interviews to ensure consistant and accurate screenings. Structured interviews involve mapping each candidate's answers against predefined criteria so that recruiters can quickly sift through applications without missing any key details.
By utilising these strategies, recruiters are able to increase the speed of screenings while still ensuring accuracy in their final selections for open roles.
Include A Phone Interview In The Initial Screening
Phone screenings are an important step in the job interview process as they allow employers to quickly identify which applicants show the most promise and invite them for a more detailed and in-depth in-person interview.
When conducting phone interviews, it's important to remain consistent and ask all applicants the same questions. This will ensure that no individual is given preferential treatment or advantage over another.
Whenever possible, begin with basic but relevant "get to know you" questions such as asking candidates about their background, accomplishments, current job role, technical skills, interests, career goals and why they want this particular job. Also, be sure to ask about the applicant's current knowledge of your company and why they would be a good fit for it.
Take note of red flags such as negativity, unpreparedness, or poor cultural fit that could indicate an unsuitable candidate for the position. Properly conducting a phone screen can help reduce time spent on interviewing unsuitable candidates in person, while helping pinpoint the ideal ones who should be offered further consideration for hire.
Final Interviews
The final round of interviews is arguably the most meaningful part of the recruitment process. This is where you get to have in-depth conversations with those who you believe are best suited for the job and evaluate their fit with your organisation. It's important to have multiple voices contribute to this step to ensure that all perspectives are heard. After your phone interviews, bring in those candidates who made a positive impression on the team for face-to-face (or video conferencing) meetings.
During these meetings, it's essential that you probe further into how well their skills fit the role and company culture. Ask more challenging questions than during a phone interview - such as scenario based questions - so that you can honestly assess if they can achieve success in this particular position within your organisation.
Additionally, take notes throughout these conversations and visually evaluate body language and reactions – these nonverbal signals will betray everything they actually mean regardless of what they answer verbally. Finally, compare their answers across all candidates and make an informed decision on your top choice for the position.
Making a Job Offer
When it comes to making a hiring decision, the most important thing is to make sure that the choice you make is both well-informed and fair. You should consult all the parties who have interacted with each of your job candidates throughout the organisation’s hiring process in order to ascertain as much information as possible before making your choice.
Once you have this, take into account both their qualifications and their potential cultural fit within the organization, making sure not to let any discriminatory biases influence your decision in any way.
Use A Specialist Recruitment Agency
Of course, the easiest way to ensure your hiring process is optimised is to use the support of a specialist recruitment agency.
At Talent Locker we strongly emphasise the importance of implementing a structured hiring process within an effective interview process - one that will allow you to effectively verify all a candidate’s relevant qualifications and know exactly who will be best suited for the role. This also includes running thorough background checks, such as contacting references or previous employers on behalf of the applicant. By doing so, you can ensure that you are entering into an employment relationship with a qualified individual who knows what they must do in order to hit the required goals and expectations.
Not only do we have access to a huge network of qualified talent, we also create effective job descriptions, have advertisement access to all the top job sites, will complete the initial screening (both CV and phone), and complete reference checks and contract management.
Get in touch to find out how we can support your talent search.