No response is a response, and it's a powerful one.

We understand, the market has gone a little bit mad, it is 100 miles an hour, and applications are flooding in from candidates who are nervous about their current role or who have unfortunately been let go. But it is absolutely vital, as ever, to protect your employer brand. You are looking for the best candidate to fill your role, and you need to work harder than ever to make sure that is what you get. You need to give every application the time it deserves, and we know this is no easy task!

Nothing has changed, candidates are still scrutinising your organisation, building an impression of yourself and your business from the very moment they click apply. First impressions cannot be undone, so lets make sure we get this right.

Set deadlines. You absolutely must be transparent with everyone about your timescales, anyone involved in recruiting internally and also candidates applying for the role. You need this to marry up and come to a close, so set it out from the very beginning, and everyone knows where they are. When will you be closing? Reviewing? Feeding back? Interviewing? If everyone isn’t on the same page with this, you could end up wasting a lot of time, and lets face it, it’s not an easy process, you want to get it right first time!

Respond to your applications. OK, so you may not be able to reply to everyone individually, but if you have reviewed a CV and it’s not right for you, pop them a wee automated response to let them know, that way they can cross it off their list. It’s polite and shows you care, and you will not believe how much this is appreciated by a job seeker.

Look after your talent. Once you have your longlist, those that you think fit the bill, you have to protect this and make sure that none of them go adrift. From the CV you get very little, and the candidate you end up choosing almost never jumps out at this point, so treat every single application who meets your criteria like they are your next hire. Engage with them, do what you said you were going to do, make the process interesting for them. Also involve them in the process, make them do a bit of work, and prove they are committed to the process. Most importantly, don’t faff! The best candidates are going to be snapped up first, don’t give another firm the opportunity!

You have to give your candidates the attention that you expect in return.

Going through your advert response and long listing can feel like you are drowning at times, and not to mention it has been an expensive and time consuming process up until now. Give yourself, your business, and your candidates the best possible service, you have come this far, you don’t want to end up back at the drawing board.

Have you got to this point and realised “I don’t have time” or “I need help managing this” don’t let all your hard work up until this point go to waste. We will help you sift through your ad response, and come out the other side with the very best longlist.

We get it, it’s our day job, and we are here to support you.