Employers
3 Steps to Successful Recruiting
Recruiting isn’t easy. If you or someone in your department does it, it can be costly and time consuming, and fraught with challenges. There is simply so much to do before, during, and after the recruiting process it is easy for the situation to become unraveled. Knowing what needs to get done is one thing; successfully implementing a successful recruiting campaign is another. Here are 3 steps to help you create and run a successful recruiting campaign.
Step 1: Raising the bar. Successful business owners often proclaim that they became successful because they hired someone smarter than themselves. This idea of always striving for better candidates should be a “best practice” for every business. Start with the core competencies required to succeed in your organization and use them to determine the criteria that candidates must meet to be considered for an interview. Encourage managers to scythe through the giant pile of resumes and ruthlessly eliminate candidates who do not meet the criteria. Refuse to settle for mediocrity. Always “trade up”.
Step 2: Defining the process. The sales side of your organization does this well already. They likely have a pre-defined pipeline that includes capturing the attention of leads, turning them into prospects, and then converting those prospects into customers. Your recruiting process can benefit from a similar pipeline. Outline how your organization will generate a pool of candidates and what steps you’ll take to move those candidates through the process. Identify how many interviews will be needed, and with whom, and what needs to be covered in each interview. Develop this process all the way through to the point of hiring the right candidate and signing the contract. This will help you to determine where candidates are along the path and make sure that the system flows smoothly.
Step 3: Meeting expectations. Recruiting is made simpler with good retention. When retention is poor, recruiters end up overworked and find themselves tempted to hire mediocre candidates. However, when retention is good, recruiters have less pressure and can focus on always filling the open position with the right candidate. So how can your organization retain top talent? By setting realistic expectations during the review process and then meeting those expectations throughout their career. Start by interviewing your current staff – especially the staff that has been with the organization the longest – to determine what keeps people at your company. Is it the wage? The path to promotions? The work/life balance? The recognition of achievement? Chances are, it’s a combination of several factors. When you identify these, incorporate the presentation of them into the interview process to set expectations with the candidate, then set up a system of checks and balances (perhaps during annual reviews) where you check to make sure that the candidate still feels that the job is what was expected.
The successful recruiter plays a critical role and becomes a partner in the business by filling open positions with successful employees. These three steps can help the recruiter find, hire, and retain the best staff.
