Having a reliably effective recruitment process is hugely important for businesses of any size and in any industry sector. In fact, being able to attract and retain the right sort of talent can even be the difference between success and failure for some companies.
So here are five tips to have in mind if you’re looking to refocus the recruitment efforts across your company.
1 – Define the roles you’re recruiting for
Recruitment is to some extent a hit-and-miss endeavour and even the most robust of processes can deliver flawed results and put the right people in the wrong places. From the perspective on an employer, what’s crucial is to be as clear as possible in defining the roles that are being recruited for.
Offering this kind of clarity means that when a new hire is taken on, they ought to know exactly what lies in store for them and they stand a better chance of being ready for the challenge.
2 – Don’t oversell it
In the context of a recruitment process, it’s natural for an employer and its recruiters to speak positively about the role that’s become available and what it might offer. It can be important though for this enthusiasm not to spill over into the realms of misleading potential recruits about what a role might actually involve.
Any employer will want a job to appeal to quality candidates but having people start in a new post and then to leave within a matter of days or weeks is clearly counterproductive. So it is well worth trying to get the balance right and to be upfront about what’s great and what, perhaps, is not so great about a particular role.
3 – Commit the right resources to the process
Having a high rate of turnover among staff members is negative in a number of ways for a company. Partly because it’s bad for morale and partly because it requires recruiters to start the hiring process from scratch more often.
Taking a half-hearted approach to recruiting the right people can end up costing a business more time, energy and resources than a concerted initial effort would have. In short, it’s better to allocate the resources required to do a good job once than to keep having to address the same issues over and over.
4 – Don’t put too much emphasis on personalities
Clearly, a company will want to employ people who its recruiters believe would fit well into an existing office or workplace environment. However, the truth is that some of the best and most productive people that companies hire are difficult to deal with and potentially disruptive. Often it can be worth finding ways to accommodate these kinds of people if it is clear that their value to the business as a whole could be considerable.
5 – Pick out specific individuals as potential recruits
When a job role is particularly important within a given context or perhaps when it is proving especially difficult to fill successfully, it can be worth employers targeting specific individuals directly and inviting them to make an application. Professional networking sites such as LinkedIn make it relatively straightforward to find individuals who might have a lot to offer your company and it’s easier than ever to reach out and connect with potential candidates.