To help you create a successful recruitment process, we've gathered insights from 18 industry professionals, including managing attorneys, CEOs, and HR directors. From networking for recruitment success to using Google Forms to your advantage, these experts share their top tips and steps for building an effective recruitment strategy.
- Network for Recruitment Success
- Craft Compelling Job Descriptions
- Choose the Right Recruitment Sources
- Ensure Accuracy from Job Descriptions to Screening
- Optimize Your Career Page with SEO
- Gather Data to Improve Recruitment
- Leverage Employee Referral Programs
- Establish an Effective Onboarding Process
- Get to Know Candidates' Personalities
- Design Well-Thought-Out Interviews
- Implement Pre-Hire Assessments
- Streamline the Application Process
- Define Company Values and Culture
- Involve Employees in Recruitment
- Utilize Applicant Tracking Systems
- Post Job Ads on Multiple Platforms
- Evaluate Recruiting Indicators
- Use Google Forms in Recruitment
Network for Recruitment Success
Any effective recruiting strategy must begin with networking. If you're not able to reach untapped sources, the rest of the process quickly becomes moot.
However, too many recruiters still think this means cold calls and conferences. While these old-school techniques have their place, we live in an interconnected world: if you're not taking advantage of social media and online communities, you're never going to compete with the top firms.
Start building your network today by setting a reach-out goal. Interacting with potential clients or candidates can be as simple as posting a comment on their latest story or post. Don't overthink it: consistency is more important than what you say, so stop agonizing and start making connections now.
Rob Reeves, CEO and President, Redfish Technology
Craft Compelling Job Descriptions
Just like candidates use their resumes to impress employers, your recruitment process must pay considerable attention to the quality of job descriptions it puts out there. These write-ups should not only include every essential piece of information on the job profile but should also offer candidates additional reasons to interview for the position.
They should reflect the company's values and reiterate how the candidate stands to benefit should they choose to be recruited with your brand instead of a competitor's. When you create job descriptions that convince, motivate, and entice, you know you've given your recruitment process the right start.
Riley Beam, Managing Attorney, Douglas R. Beam, P.A.
Choose the Right Recruitment Sources
Determining your recruitment sources is a crucial step in building an effective recruitment process. It is essential to identify the channels that will yield the best candidates for your job openings.
Online job boards and social media platforms can be effective for reaching a vast pool of job seekers. Referrals from current employees or industry contacts can also yield quality candidates. Recruiting firms can be a valuable resource, particularly for specialized or hard-to-fill roles.
By choosing the right recruitment sources, you can increase your chances of finding the right candidate for your job opening. It is important to consider your hiring needs and budget and to use a diverse mix of recruitment sources to ensure that you have access to the best possible talent.
Brandon Brown, CEO, GRIN
Ensure Accuracy from Job Descriptions to Screening
The recruitment process can be effective when a company has well-defined goals and resources. One key step to take is to ensure that the job description accurately details the responsibilities of the position; this includes summarizing tasks, qualifications, and any necessary skills or experience.
One universally accepted example of this might be to include difficult hypothetical questions related to the field in order to test candidates' problem-solving capabilities as part of the initial screening process. Doing so would help recruiters assess whether potential employees possess certain traits before fully engaging in conversations about their background or experiences.
Grace He, People and Culture Director, TeamBuilding
Optimize Your Career Page with SEO
Building an effective recruitment process requires attracting the right candidates. One tip to achieve this is to use SEO techniques to optimize your career page.
By doing so, you can improve its visibility on search engines, making it easier for potential candidates to discover your job openings. To optimize your career page, incorporate relevant keywords related to your industry and the positions you offer. Create informative and engaging content that showcases your company culture, values, and benefits.
Additionally, ensure your job listings have clear and concise titles, along with well-structured descriptions that include important details, requirements, and responsibilities. This optimization will help you reach a wider pool of qualified candidates and streamline your recruitment process.
Jaya Iyer, Marketing Assistant, Teranga Digital Marketing
Gather Data to Improve Recruitment
Gathering data on what has worked well and what hasn't can help you make smarter decisions about your recruitment process.
First and foremost, you should send out a survey or questionnaire to both those who applied for a role but weren't selected and those who were hired. The objective is to find out why applicants chose not to go further in the hiring process or why they felt they weren’t chosen for the job.
This will also provide insights into how people perceive your company's hiring protocols, whether there are any areas that could be improved upon, if any particular steps need clarification or are more difficult than necessary, etc.
Roksana Bielecka, Community Manager, ResumeHelp
Leverage Employee Referral Programs
Recruiting the most suitable candidate for the position is sometimes the most laborious task for the employer. But by considering the power of employee referrals, you can make it less difficult. With the help of an employee referral program, you can involve employees in the recruitment process.
Provide rewards to the employees when they give referrals. It is important to motivate employees to participate in the employee referral program and provide some genuine referrals. Employees can spread the word about job openings. It can lead to a more qualified pool of employees in the company.
New hires who come through the employee referral program are more likely to stay. And referred employees start their job sooner than the employees recruited from other sources. Employees recruited with the help of a referral program are also good at generating 25% more profit. Likewise, this type of new hire is more likely to fit into the culture faster because they at least know one employee already.
Saikat Ghosh, Associate Director of HR and Business, Technource
Establish an Effective Onboarding Process
Ensure that you have an extensive and helpful pre-defined onboarding process before you start to recruit new employees.
You can have all the new hires in the world, but if the company is not set up to train and onboard efficiently, then the process can simply fall apart!
Tracey Beveridge, HR Director, Personnel Checks
Get to Know Candidates' Personalities
One tip to building an effective recruitment process is to get to know this future employee based on their personality and not their “work” personality. To dive deeper, what I call a “work” personality is the one most of us have where we are a go-getter and ready to tackle tasks and put our best foot forward. While these are personality traits we often carry, it's necessary to take time to get to know each person outside of that.
Take time to learn about their interests, hobbies, family, and other things that are important to them. By doing this, you are likely to find employees that will blend well with your work culture and values. Not only that, but you can help plug them into group chats with others who have the same interests.
Sacha Ferrandi, Founder and Principal, Source Capital
Design Well-Thought-Out Interviews
Make sure that your interviews are well-designed and that your interview questions are well-thought-out.
For example, rather than asking the typical interview questions that most companies ask, such as "What are your strengths?" you could ask scenario-based questions instead that would allow you to gain insight into whether the candidate would fit in with your particular company culture.
Natalia Morozova, Partner, Cohen, Tucker & Ades Immigration Law Firm
Implement Pre-Hire Assessments
I've been hiring content writers for the past four years, and the one thing I learned about this hiring process is that companies desperately need to set up pre-hire assessments for their candidates.
Content writing is the lowest barrier to entry in a work-from-home job, and anyone that speaks a little bit of English thinks they can write. This is not true, but sifting through hundreds of candidates and trusting portfolios is not only time-consuming but money-consuming as well, as you have no idea which candidate is actually qualified.
If you want to hire the top 1%, you need to set up a great recruitment process, which, in our case and in the case of numerous companies and marketing agencies, absolutely must include a pre-hire test that helps you understand which candidate is worth your time and your company's money.
Gordana Sretenovic, Co-founder, Workello
Streamline the Application Process
A complex or lengthy application process may deter potential applicants from applying. Streamline your application process by using a basic application form, minimizing superfluous information requests, and ensuring that your application process is mobile-friendly.
I believe that this can help you attract a bigger pool of candidates and make the application process more user-friendly.
Ben Flynn, Marketing Manager, Manhattan Tech Support
Define Company Values and Culture
One tip or step that I recommend for building an effective recruitment process is to define your company's values and culture from the outset.
This means taking the time to identify what's important to your company and what kind of culture you want to cultivate, and then using these values to guide your recruitment efforts.
When you clearly understand your company's values and culture, you can use this to guide your recruitment process in a number of ways.
For example, you can create job postings and descriptions that reflect your company's values and culture, and use these to attract candidates who share these same values.
You can also use your company's values to guide your interview process, asking questions that help you determine whether a candidate is a good fit for your company culture.
This can include questions about their work style, their approach to problem-solving, and their personal values and beliefs.
Evander Nelson, NASM-certified Personal Trainer, evandernelson
Involve Employees in Recruitment
To establish an effective recruitment process, ensure that you have enough employees to facilitate a successful recruiting strategy.
For instance, there could be one person in charge of finding viable candidates, someone else in charge of interviewing during the first round of interviews, etc. Having more employees involved will allow each employee to do their part well rather than having one or a few people handling everything and becoming overwhelmed. This could lead to poor recruiting decisions.
Miles Beckett, Co-founder and CEO, Flossy
Utilize Applicant Tracking Systems
By automating operations such as resume screening, interview scheduling, and candidate communication, ATS can help you manage your recruitment process more efficiently. In my view, ATS may also help you track your recruitment KPIs, discover areas for improvement, and ensure that you comply with data protection rules.
Andrew Dale, Technical Director, CloudTech24
Post Job Ads on Multiple Platforms
Post job ads on as many platforms as possible. It is important to remember that people use some platforms more than others. While you could easily assume that most people use LinkedIn, this may not always be the case. Even if they have a LinkedIn account, they could spend more time on Indeed or a more niche job-hunting platform.
For instance, there are certain job platforms that cater to a specific job or industry. Advertise on as many relevant platforms as you can to attract a wide variety of candidates.
Maegan Griffin, Founder, CEO, and Nurse Practitioner, Skin Pharm
Evaluate Recruiting Indicators
Measuring and evaluating recruiting indicators such as time-to-hire, cost-per-hire, and candidate quality will assist you in identifying areas for improvement and optimizing your recruitment process. I believe this data will assist you in making data-driven decisions and improving your recruitment process.
Arman Minas, Director, Armstone
Use Google Forms in Recruitment
The conventional way of scanning resumes and moving to the next interview round wastes a lot of time and human resources. Instead, using Google Forms can make the recruitment process more effective.
For example, make custom Google Forms for each job role. In the form, include questions that can test their expertise related to the role. Ask questions that you would ask in a one-on-one interview round.
There are a lot of formats that you can explore, such as MCQs and elaborated answers, and there is even an option for uploading documents. So you can also ask them to drop their resumes and relevant work samples at the end.
By doing this, your mailbox won’t get spammed by applicants who are not serious about the job, and it will also become easier for you to pick the right candidates. Also, use multiple social media platforms and paid ads to promote the job advert.
Raju Thammala, Founder, WebPipl
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