Your recruitment process is the all-encompassing process of finding and hiring new employees for your business: From defining what your new employee needs to look like, to interviews, to onboarding your new employee.
The recruitment process is long and complicated, but it’s essential to get it right to ensure your business hires the right person for the job, and helps them to find success in their new role.
For many candidates and employees, the recruitment process is a daunting process. A recent survey from BambooHR found that 83% of employees that they surveyed, had had a negative experience during the recruitment and onboarding process. With the main reasons shared being ghosting, rude hiring managers, colleagues or interviewers.
And if an employee has a negative experience with interviewing for and onboarding your company, it’s not a strong start to a relationship that can severely impact your employee retention.
14 Strategies to Improve Your Recruitment Process
1. Write Your Company Pitch
This is something you’ve probably done already, but it never hurts to revisit your company pitch.
Your company pitch is just what it says on the tin, how you sell your company to a prospective candidate. Because the recruitment process is a two-way street.
You need to get the candidate’s attention in the first place. And during the interview process they’re interviewing you just as much as you are interviewing them.
And your company culture is a huge driving force behind your recruitment efforts. In fact, 79% of executives believe their company culture to be one of the top three drivers behind their business.
So write yourself a company pitch using your culture, mission, values, training, and the overall benefits of working for your business. It may be worth asking current employees what they enjoy most about working there. All of this will help separate you from the competition in a great way.
2. Identify the Skills Your New Hire Needs to Have
Before entering the recruitment process you need to be crystal clear about the skills your new hire needs to have.
If you’re replacing someone who is leaving the company, this is a bit easier: You will have a strong idea of the skills they need already, and can speak with the time they worked with to find out more.
Additionally, this can be an opportunity to expand the role and think of any additional skills you would like your new employee to have.
But if you’re hiring for a brand new position within the business, this becomes a little bit trickier. It can involve getting outside help and perspective on the skills you need someone to have to be successful in the new position.
3. Write a Job Description
Once you’ve got an idea of all the skills your new hires, it’s time to put all of the above together into a job description. The job description is a document that you’ll refer to throughout the recruitment process, so it’s important to be thorough and get it right.
Again, when writing the job description it’s a good idea to get the input of multiple people within the business. This gives you a better understanding of the skills this person needs by asking different questions that you may not have an overview of:
- What day-to-day responsibilities will this person have?
- Which skills and experience does this person need to have?
- And what skills and experience would you like them to have, but aren’t essential?
- What is the future for this position in the business?
- Are there opportunities for progression for this position?
- What training opportunities will they have?
Asking questions like these will help you to market the role, and to evaluate who is and isn’t right for the position.
4. Use the Job Description to Write an Amazing Job Advert
When you’ve written and reviewed the job description and everyone is happy with it, it’s time to use it to write a job advert that brings you inbound candidates for your role. Writing a job advert can be a little trickier to get right than it first appears, and it’s essential to include all the information you need while also appealing to your target audience.
The sections that your job advert needs to include are:
- “Key Details” – The key information that an applicant needs to see.
- “About the Company” – The major selling points on the company, why they would be a great place to work.
- “Role Responsibilities” – The day-to-day responsibilities that the person will be doing.
- “Skills and Experience Required” – What skills and experience do you need to see from the applicant.
- “Company Benefits” or “What’s in it For You” – What benefits are offered that can attract your ideal candidate?
For a full guide on writing a job advert that attracts the candidates you want to speak to, read our comprehensive guide here.
5. Distribute Your Job Advert Everywhere You Can
Once you’ve written a job advert that contains all the necessary information while selling the position and your company, it’s time to distribute it.
There are plenty of job boards where you can post your job to maximise the amount of inbound candidates for your position: Linkedin, Reed, Indeed to name a few. These can be free, free with a limited number of job slots, or functionality, or cost money to use (and these can become quite expensive).
Which is right for your business depends on your hiring needs, and how much you can realistically spend on recruitment.
You can also create social media posts about your new job opportunity. We would advise sticking to the professional focused platforms such as LinkedIn and Twitter, where people would be most receptive to hearing about new job opportunities.
There is also the opportunity to explore paid advertising, to increase the amount of relevant people who see your job advert. This can become quickly expensive however, and not necessarily improve your recruitment process. As you may receive many more unsuitable than suitable applicants that you will then have to sort through.
6. Head-Hunt and Reach Out to Candidates
When you aren’t getting candidates who are right for your business coming to you, it might be time to go out to market and find them. This can mean head-hunting: Messaging people on LinkedIn, emailing, and calling them at their desk.
Some places to start your search are:
- Searching through LinkedIn for candidates who match your skills and experience requirements.
- Your own internal database of previous applicants (if you have one)
- Reaching out to your wider network of connections.
- Looking on job boards like CV Library for people actively looking for a role.
- Head-hunting directly from competitors through LinkedIn or their website.
While it’s great to get people applying to your jobs, there’s a good chance they’re also applying to others as well.
Whereas the people who you head-hunt, may only be working with you. Meaning you can find greater success from a proactive recruitment process, than a reactive one.
7. Filter Through the Applications You Receive
Hopefully you’ve had lots of applications and have even found some candidates yourself. But now comes the need to filter through these applications and CVs, and decide which will progress to an interview stage.
When evaluating CVs, here are a few questions you can ask that may help you separate the good candidates from the not-so-good.
- How much has the candidate moved around?
Sometimes employees move around a lot to learn new skills from different jobs. But sometimes they move around, because they can’t stick it out in one job for long. It can be difficult to tell the difference without speaking to someone, but it is something to be aware of.
- Do you have anyone in your network you can ask?
It can often be worth the time checking your network on LinkedIn for example, to see if anyone you know is connected with a candidate. They can give you insight into what they’re like, and maybe put you in touch with someone who has worked with them previously.
- What accomplishments do they list on their CV?
Good candidates list the things they achieved in their previous role. If a candidate simply lists their responsibilities in the job, it can be a sign they didn’t achieve much. Or they could simply not know how to write a winning CV. After all, it’s not everyone’s forte.
- Does the CV match the job advert?
Seeing how closely the skills they list matches your job adverts is a general indicator that the applicant has actually spent time reading the job advert. And while you might not expect every applicant to spend days pouring over their CV before applying, it’s always good to see that someone is passionate enough about joining your company to put the effort in.
8. Make Your Decision and Make it Fast
Once you have CVs to evaluate and applicants to consider, it’s important that you make your decision and make it fast. Every day matters in recruitment and while a candidate is interviewing with you, they are also likely interviewing with 2 or 3 other businesses as well.
Something we always advise is having a flexible interview process and being able to interview candidates when it is best for them. This can be after work, or even during your lunch break.
Because offering that flexibility shows candidates that you’re eager to meet with them, your business doesn’t have a rigid structure, and it can allow you to interview someone two or even three days earlier than would otherwise be possible. And that can make all the difference for your recruitment process.
9. Avoid a Long, Drawn Out Interview Process
When you hire a new employee, you want to make sure you have a thorough interview process that ensures you hire the right person for the role.
After all, bad hires can be incredibly costly for your business, and avoiding them is one of the biggest recruitment challenges that the businesses we’ve worked with have faced in 2023.
But by having an interview process that is too long and drawn out, you may be losing out on quality candidates to competitors. Additionally, candidates may simply become fatigued by a long interview process and drop out.
Here at Dynamic we would generally advise no more than 4 interviews. This includes an initial phone interview that acts as more of a screening call and chemistry meeting, to make sure the candidates are who they say they are.
Any longer than 4 interviews should be reserved for only your most senior positions, or when you’re having trouble deciding between some comparable candidates.
10. When You Decide, Give the Candidate Your Best Offer First
When you decide which candidate to give an offer to, you should aim to give your best offer first, without trying to save a few thousand for the company: Especially if the candidate is already expecting a certain salary offer.
You want to show the candidate that you’re serious in your offer, and not trying to lowball them.
When actually giving your offer, we suggest giving it face-to-face, over a video call or over the phone: In a way that will help you to gauge their reaction. This also allows you to answer any questions that they may have.
If they accept, then make sure to follow up with a formal offer letter that outlines everything they need to know around salary, benefits, and their start date. This will also help get the ball rolling on any paperwork, and make them more committed to your company by getting it in writing.
11. Prepare Your New Employee for a Counter Offer
Just because a candidate has accepted your job offer, doesn’t mean you’re done yet. The next step is to prepare your candidate for the inevitable counter offer.
We advise starting these conversations sooner rather than later, to warn them of the realities of what a counter offer means. Reasons like these, are why candidates should think twice before accepting a counter offer:
- 80% of employees who accept a counter offer will leave the job within the year: And employers know this. Meaning a counter offer is often used as a stop-gap measure, while employers look for a replacement.
- Because the employer thinks the candidate may leave soon anyway, they’ll be less likely to receive training and development, or progression and promotions.
- Money often isn’t the sole or main motivator for why people leave their roles. But a counter offer usually attempts to solve a problem simply with money. So often doesn’t actually address an employee’s reasons for leaving.
For more ways to prevent your candidates from accepting counter offers, you can read our complete guide here.
12. Keep in Contact While They Work Their Notice Period
Keeping in contact and touching base with your soon-to-be new employee will help decrease the likelihood of losing them: This can be due to a counter offer, the employee getting cold feet, or losing them to a rival company.
As well as ensuring a smooth transition for the employee and starting the onboarding process.
13. Onboard Your New Employee
Speaking of onboarding your new employee, your onboarding process is an incredibly important part of your recruitment process. And yes, we realise, the recruitment process never ends.
But your employee retention efforts and onboarding process start now. And a structured onboarding process can make your new employees up to a staggering 18 times more committed to your workplace. So absolutely shouldn’t be overlooked when it comes to the importance of helping your new employees become a part of your business.
14. Or Skip Most of These and Work With a Recruitment Partner…
Or you can skip most of the above by working with a specialist, talent solutions partner. Because here at Dynamic we take care of the incredibly time consuming parts of the recruitment processes for you, such as:
- Head-hunting candidates that are within and outside of our huge network of qualified IT professionals across Networks, Infrastructure, Cloud, Security, Software Development, and Account Management.
- Using our wide range of software and technologies to access candidates that aren’t available through typical recruitment means.
- Filtering through hundreds of candidate applications and making sure you only see qualified IT Professionals.
- Taking care of initial screening calls and interviews.
- Arranging subsequent interviews for you at a time that is convenient for you.
- Keep the candidate engaged and excited throughout the recruitment process.
- Preparing candidates for counter offers, and reducing the chances of them dropping out or accepting offers from competitors.
And while all of the above saves you huge amounts of time, it also gives you access to a larger pool of candidates, means you risk less time and money on making bad hires, and allows you to concentrate your efforts on other areas of your growing business: To name a few of the tangible benefits for your business.
With all of the information above, you’re ready to get out there, improve your recruitment process (if you need to), and hire your brilliant new employee. Or if you’ve decided that you’d love to hire but don’t have the time or expertise, you can have a look here to see what we can do for your business.