Is Your Recruitment Process Failing You?

Lots of businesses are struggling to recruit the right people at the moment. Recently, I've done a lot of vacancy consultations to work with clients to better understand their business and help them improve hiring.

Every client is different, but for the most part the challenges I come across – in terms of hiring – are the same and are costing businesses too much time and money. The inefficiencies of recruiting with no clear strategy means that organisations are seemingly putting in a lot of work, with little to no return.

Let's look at some of the ways this can happen and what can be done to solve the issues:

Time and again, I speak to businesses and they say they're hiring. I'll ask how many CVs they’ve received and they’ll tell me ten, twenty sometimes thirty!

"A Recruiter's job is not to dump CVs they've found on our lap and expect you to sort it out"

If you're receiving large numbers of CVs from a Recruiter, you're essentially doing the sifting and selection work they should be doing for you. A Recruiter's job is to identify, approach, qualify and present the best candidates in the market to you; not dump some they've found in your lap and expect you to sort it out.

When it comes to most roles, if you’re receiving more than six CVs, something isn't right. Either the job brief hasn't been understood/isn't thorough enough (bad) or the Recruiter just takes a punt and sends you CVs outside of your brief (even worse). ? ? ? ? ? ?

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This could be down to quite a few different factors:

• The job brief is too tight and you need to be more flexible to widen the potential talent pool.
• The role and/or your company aren't being sold well enough to attract people.
• The salary/remuneration package is inappropriate for the role.

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I can't stress this enough: sell your opportunity. Ideally this should be the role and the company. Either way, you should be positioning your business/team as a great opportunity for your ideal candidate. This is even more important with headhunted or passive candidates who don't need to change jobs, but could be swayed by the right conditions.

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The problem here is that candidates are being qualified poorly and poorly-qualified candidates are often those that aren't serious about your opportunity. Sometimes, good recruitment means NOT putting a candidate forward. This requires working with candidates to help them understand the situation they're in and whether they need to move jobs or not.?

"...recruitment should be about problem-solving."

I've always felt that recruitment should be about problem-solving. If a jobseeker has a problem that their current employer can solve, they don't need to be speaking to anyone else about another job. Rather, they need to speak to their employer and let them solve the problem.

In a situation like this, I'll say 'Have you talked to your employer? It's important you do and you'll know then if things can be resolved or if you've got a real decision to make.'?Talk before you walk.

I've done this countless times in my career and people are usually grateful for the help and advice and appreciate not just having their CV sent out for the sake of it.?Furthermore, I don't want to put my client through the trouble of interviewing someone who, in the final analysis, probably won't move.? ?

Often, these are the people who pull out at the interview stage or are counter-offered by an existing employer as their real issues aren't accounted for and tackled early on. ?

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The best defence you have here where a counter-offer is likely, is your Employee Value Proposition (EVP). This is the sum total of your business' culture, history, vision, environment and approach and what that means for your staff, clients and employees. It's the very essence of your business, your USP even, and when it's good, it will be the thing that will make a candidate's decision to move easier.

Why is it important??Because if someone is sold in this way on your business, it's VERY difficult for them to be susceptible to a counter-offer by their current employer.

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Changing jobs is a massive decision for most people. Doubts and a little fear of change are normal. So, what do you do when someone has resigned but has a lengthy period before they start with you?

Sit back and wait for them to arrive? I hope not!

This is a time when things can still go wrong. We call this period the 'loyalty vacuum.' Think about it; this person is no longer loyal to their old employer - they've resigned - but they've also got no loyalty to you, as they haven't started yet.

The risks here are that they could be approached by one of your competitors about other options. Your best bet here is consistent contact. Meet them, check in with them regularly, reassure them that they've made the right decision and help them to look forward to joining you.

Hopefully, these insights provide a new perspective on what you can do differently in your recruitment process. To summarise:

Partner with fewer Recruiters - it should be one ideally and spend more time with them so they understand your business

Develop a thorough and clear recruitment brief - a good Recruiter will help you do this?

Sell your opportunity and company

Develop a solid EVP - we've done some work on this that we're happy to share with interested hiring managers - for free.

Hopefully these ideas will get you back on the right track. If not give us a shout we'll be happy to help...