How to Create a Smarter Recruitment Process

There are clear benefits to creating a smarter recruitment process however making the necessary changes may be uncomfortable at first.

The key is to break it down into manageable changes that you can slowly implement.

Step 1 – Planning/Embracing change

It’s pretty likely that you’ll have to convince yourself and maybe others that changing the structure of your hiring process is a good plan. Put together a pitch that demonstrates the potential for change – be prepared to argue that your company is missing out on great talent, and that a new approach could be a good way to change that. 

The old tried and true job boards may be closer to extinction than you think. Whilst some people may still be getting the result they require from a job board more and more employers are telling us that they are just not getting the quality anymore and find it very frustrating that our industry, recruiters, are stuffing the job boards and that their own adverts are not only losing impact, they can go unnoticed as well.

Take the time to make sure you do have a growth plan in place, do you have to wait until you get that resignation before you look for new talent? My take on this is, how often do you hear about someone really fantastic when you have just hired someone ordinary or you decide “I will just wait until someone resigns” putting you right back into that good old reactive mode and also putting yourself under time pressure and potentially more stress. Lets just think about if for a minute, if we all planned to have a constant growth (and you should be) and had a policy to be slightly overstaffed then when you get that resignation wouldn’t it be easier to actually  promote from within and then rehire to keep the “numbers up”? 

In order to get this process working for you, you need to plan it carefully, make sure you know your outcome or goals, maybe think outside of the box and get creative! If you have a well planned process then this will take out the guess work for you and also the stress factor as well.

Her is an outside thought - think about whether you need to meet each candidate face-to-face or whether you would be happy with a video interview. Not only is this far easier to arrange and eliminates many sticking points in the hiring process, but there are some great tools out there that ensure you don’t lose the personal element of a face-to-face interview. The saving in time (for you and the candidate) and the speed in which you can do this are invaluable, ask yourself the question "Do I really need to have them come into my office?”. What if the best talent was inter state or in another country? The benefits of this technique far out weigh the down side and there is always the extensive reference checks that support the applicant as well to fall back to.

Step 2 – Inside out hiring?

What you say is this - well I always believe that the best place to start your search is always going to be within your own organisation. This does two things, first you get to show to your team that do you actually encourage internal growth and secondly the best talent may actually be there. Think about it, they already know you, your culture your values AND you don’t need to train them on the overall of the company, maybe just a few specifics.

Questions to think about, could anyone in your team handle the requirements of the role, do you have sufficient systems and procedures in place to allow internal growth, do you have a mentoring program in place, do you actually encourage lateral thinking and advancement? The list actually can go on and on, the key point here is that internal promotion is that your team members will actually stay longer if you hire from within. Another key benefit is that it is always quicker to hire from within so think if the time saving in staff resources alone and they also can hilt the ground running! 

Step 3 – (I love this one!) Form a solid relationship with a recruiter who specialises in your industry.

I could spend hours on this one but I wont. Briefly though think of the benefits before you think about the investment, I mean really think about it. A trusted ally in an industry specialist will be able to supply you with talent that you and your competition can’t locate, they will get to understand your business and know what you are looking for in your team members, they will be able to understand your culture, your environment and your team dynamics something that a “online applicant” will never know.

Consider the time you invest currently when you are recruiting and then think of the income you could create with the time you don’t spend in the "weeding out” process. In many environments this could be thousands of dollars in deals made (or lost) due to the fact that you didn't have the time to “give” to that deal or dealing with a team member that was working on this.

Maybe the recruitment fee isn’t so bad after all!

Step 4 – Build in a consistent feedback “system” with all parties that are involved.

Feedback is imperative and one of the steps that is generally overlooked as soon as you get the next employee on board you forget all about the process and what happened - until you get the next resignation and that oh no feeling again. You need to keep improving what you do so that if there are mistakes that can be eliminated then great lets get rid of them! 

For every recruiting campaign that you run, break down exactly what went well and what you could improve on. Use this data to establish a basic feedback loop. This should help you understand which elements of your process need work and which are effective.

Lastly call that recruiter that you knew you were going to, make the call and then start the process to a smoother and better recruitment future!