Are you getting the most qualified candidates for your open positions? The answer to this question can decide your business destiny. Strong team building starts with impeccable recruitment — finding productive, innovative staff members will drive your company forward.
Unfortunately, hiring is often more art than science. Picking the perfect choice from a crowd of seemingly qualified candidates is difficult. The process becomes even more challenging in a tight labor market, when employers get especially competitive about nabbing top talent.
No wonder businesses make so many mistakes. Almost half of business managers (46%) report making a regrettable hire in the past 12 months.
And that’s just looking over the last year. Longer-term, almost three-quarters of employers (74%) admit they have given the wrong candidate an open position. Meanwhile, each of these unfortunate recruitment decisions lead to losses of nearly $15,000, on average.
Unfortunately, there’s no perfect prescription for discovering the perfect fit for every position. However, there are steps you can take. Follow these strategies to make sure you get the most qualified candidates:
Define Your Ideal Candidate
At the start of your recruiting process, make a list of the qualifications you would like to see in the ideal candidate. Include both the technical skills the role requires and the key soft skills you’d prefer. From there, you should prioritize the desired abilities based on how central they are to the role.
With this list in mind, you can evaluate your candidates more thoroughly. You’ll have a framework in mind to judge each applicant’s fitness for the open position.
Fine-Tune Your Job Description
Now that you’ve defined your ideal candidate, you need to take the steps necessary to find them. This starts with your job description. Here, you make your initial connection with potential employees.
The details of the position will communicate to job seekers what you want to see. At the same time, you can sell the benefits of your company and of the particular role, enticing top talent to apply. As such, take time to craft an informative, attractive job description that will convince high-quality candidates to contact you.
Get Creative About Recruitment
A flexible hiring approach lets you discover top candidates, wherever they are. On the other hand, focusing exclusively on large, traditional job sites can let excellent options go undetected. As such, boost your creativity with strategies like these:
- Go Beyond the Obvious Job Sites: Post your job descriptions on niche job sites, focusing on particular industries, regions, or population groups.
- Leverage Social Media: Advertise open positions on social media and stay open to finding candidates on those platforms.
- Find Passive Talent: Don’t wait for the top candidates to come to you. Rather, seek out passive talent and approach the potential candidates that best fit your needs.
- Use Employee Referrals: Get your current staff involved in the hiring process. They can provide stellar candidates through referrals.
Streamline Your Hiring Process
Your most qualified candidates will have other options. A drawn-out or confusing hiring process can push these potential superstars to other opportunities. Avoid this by maintaining a streamlined structure.
Create a concentrated timeline for the hiring process. Don’t burden candidates with unnecessarily long applications. At the same time, communicate clearly with your best applicants, making sure they stay engaged.
Optimize Job Interviews
Once you’ve created a strong pool of candidates, your hiring decision often comes down to the interview process. These discussions let you go beyond the resume to select the prospective employee with the highest potential. To do so, you should get the most out of these talks.
Here are a few steps to maximize your interview process:
- Create an Interview Game Plan
- Include Multiple Voices in the Hiring Process
- Start with Shorter Prescreening Interviews
- Avoid Cliche Questions
Reach Out to PrideStaff Bend Today
Finding amazing employees takes planning and effort. It also helps to have professional input. A top recruiter, like PrideStaff, can deliver the talent you need to push your organization to the next level. Contact PrideStaff Bend today to learn more.
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