With a market saturated with candidates it is hard to know how, when and indeed if you need to recruit. Follow our tips to make it a smoother process:
1. Make sure you know what exactly the role is you are trying to fill. Have a meeting with the managers, team leaders or supervisors of the department to make sure you on the same page in terms of the kind of person you and they need.
2. Put together a detailed person specification and job description based on the outcome of the meeting. Try to prioritise what is essential for the role and what is desirable. A helpful practice is to choose 3 things that are key elements to the role and then be flexible on the others. You’d be amazed how often employers change their minds when pushed on what is really important to them.
3. Decide how you are going to recruit. There are many mediums available including advertising in local papers, on job boards or via an agency. There are pros and cons to each of these options. Obviously an agency has the largest cost attached but with significantly less time involved on your part, freeing you up to concentrate on what makes you money!
4. If you decide on an agency, make sure you choose one based on its ability to find you relevant candidates rather than the cheapest. The consultant should offer to meet with you in order to get a full understanding of the role and company and take down a detailed job description before they start sending over options.
5. Make time to look through CVs properly. If needs be pencil out an hour in your diary that week to go through them. A rushed look can often result in overlooking someone who is right or deciding to interview someone who is wrong.
6. Set up interviews quickly - if you hang around and sit on the CVs for any more than a week, you are likely to lose good people.
7. Make sure you know what the interview process will entail. Is it one, two or even three stages? Who do you want them to meet? Will it be formal at the first interview and more informal at the second? Will there be any competency based questions or skills testing?
8. Are you confident in your interview technique? An interview is also there to ascertain if candidate is interested in you and your company. You would be surprised how many candidates will reject a job if they have felt that the interview was unprepared or because they were still unsure of what the company and role entail.
9. If you are using an agency, take advice from them – if they have three good options see them, if they have only one because it is a hard role to fill, don’t rule them out as you have had no ‘comparisons’ sometimes there aren’t any and you lose a good candidate.
10. Don’t sit on an offer, make sure you have thought about it properly and discussed it with relevant colleagues, but if you think they are right, get the offer out to them within a couple of days ensuring that it is at an appropriate level to prevent any awkward negotiations or a risk that the candidate will not feel valued.
If you need any more advice or are struggling to recruit, please feel free to contact us and we can let you know if we can help you further. Also look out for more detailed tips on: ‘Writing job descriptions’, ‘Interview techniques’ and ‘What an agency should do for you’. …
No comments:
Post a Comment