One of the key mistakes I see often in recruiting for a role is a hire fast and ask questions later approach. Many times the workload is immense for the team and they are looking to alleviate the stress as quick as possible and hiring can turn into a transactional piece when it should be transformational. Hiring the right person and putting the work into your recruitment strategy at the outset pays dividends for your business.
Here’s 5 key things you need to look at for your recruitment strategy to ensure you are best equipped at hiring the right fit for your business and don’t fall into the transactional trap!
1. Understand your company brand
When partnering with a recruiter or working on your hiring do some research around where you are positioned in the market and what your value proposition is. You need to be considering “what makes us different?” and “why would someone want to work for us?”. Do you have cutting edge technology at the forefront of your field? Are you very agile and make decisions quickly so can adapt to change well? Do you have great flexibility? Are you diverse in your project portfolio offering a large scope of opportunities for someone? Do you have a solid average tenure of 10+ years in the business? Do you have an ethos of promoting from within and strong leadership pathways? All of these questions are going to lead you to finding the match for the candidate in the market that wants what your organisation has to offer- and that is the most important part in getting that initial culture fit right.
2. Prioritise employee referrals
There is an immense amount of talent available in an organisation if you ask for it. Often new hires will be leaving organisations that are losing staff and this is prime time when they are approached if other roles exist. Make it appealing for them to refer someone to you. Ask your latest 10 hires the top 3 people they’d recommend from previous organisations and watch your talent pool grow. Better yet, reward that referral with a cash incentive bonus once their new hire passes probation. Win-win!
3. Understand the role and the 80/20 rule
Always allocate 30 minutes for a role brief. If you are hiring yourself then brainstorm this with another manager or team member to ensure diversity in thought and to avoid any hiring biases! What do you need the person to have in order to hit the ground running and where can you develop? That old saying around the 80/20 role where you hire for 80% of the role and build on the extra 20% buys a lot of loyalty an a win-win for both parties.
4. Invest in the right recruitment and onboarding tools
There are a few areas companies will try to skimp on in a business and the office biscuits and recruitment tools shouldn’t be those areas. Having the right sourcing tools, applicant tracking system and HR onboarding tools will streamline your process and ensure that the person coming into the role has a positive experience. Recent research by Brandon Hall Group found organisation with a strong onboarding process improve new hire retention by 82% and productivity by over 70%. That’s a pretty compelling investment to make in your people and the process.
5. Make interviews a two-way street
Take time in the interview to sell your company and the opportunity. Unemployment is at it’s lowest rate in over 45 years so now is the market where prospective employees have options. Spend the time at the start selling the role, build rapport and don’t fall into the trap of just firing questions. Take a considered approach with no more than 10 high value questions and spend the rest of the time building rapport and allowing the person the opportunity to ask the questions they need to ascertain if you are the right fit for them.
They have a saying that recruitment isn’t rocket science and while I believe we aren’t scientists I can also say that there is a lot of strategy and psychology that goes into making recruitment great.
Remembering that your people are your business will help you implement these key takeaways in your strategy and grow your team with the right intention and direction for profitable growth.
