Hiring new talent on your team is an exciting milestone for any business owner, hiring manager, and current employee. Not only does a new recruit symbolize an extra set of helping hands, but it also gives you the opportunity to hire someone with excellent experience, new skills, and a great attitude. However, the hiring process can be a tricky thing to work out and truth be told, it doesn’t always have a favorable outcome.
Whether you end up with a new hire that exaggerated their expertise or someone more sinister, there are plenty of possibilities that could potentially threaten the success and safety of your business, customers, and existing employees.
In this post, we’ll be taking a look at three steps to improve your hiring process, and in turn, narrow down your applicant pool to the most qualified candidates only.
1. Start With Better Business Branding
When you think about the hiring process, what’s the first thing that comes to mind? Applications, interviews, and elevator speeches are probably near the top of your list. While a big part of the process is candidates working hard to sell themselves as the right person for the role, it’s important to remember that your business needs to market itself the same way.
In order to attract and retain top talent, you’ll want your business to be a reputable, enjoyable, and professional place to work — a workplace an employee would be proud to add to their resume. Of course, you’ll need to live by a set of core values that demonstrate this level of professionalism, but don’t forget to market your high reputation to job seekers!
Here are a few tips to help you improve your business branding and attract better talent as a result:
- Inject your company’s core values throughout your business website, as well as internal and external communications.
- Maintain your social media presence by keeping posts and pictures updated and polished.
- Monitor customer reviews and address positive and negative using a review management platform. Your reputation with customers says a lot about your organization.
Important note: In addition to monitoring customer reviews, you’ll also want to pay special attention to employee reviews on job board sites. These days, it’s commonplace for job seekers to look at current and former employee reviews to glean insight on the company culture, pay range, growth opportunities, etc. Staying in tune with this feedback will allow you to address internal issues, send a public response, and if done well, present your business as a great place to work!
2. Write Informative and Enticing Job Descriptions
As we discussed in step one, it’s incredibly important to market your business as a great place to work and an overall stellar organization. One place where these efforts can really shine is within your job descriptions. When you’re drafting up a summary for an open role, remember to include high-level things like prerequisites, job duties and responsibilities, and application instructions, but don’t forget to make it appealing to job applicants.
Feel free to brag about your visionary ideas, amazing company culture, your competitive pay, commitment to a healthy work-life balance, and your generous benefits packages. These bullet points will give you an edge on your competition and open the door to some amazing candidates.
3. Save Time With Screenings
It should come as no surprise to you that the hiring process is a time-consuming one. In fact, you’re probably already familiar with the lengthy interviews and long vacancies that lead up to hiring the right person for the role. However, there are ways that you can save time (and money) as you prepare to bring new talent to your team.
One of the best ways to do this is through screening processes. Now, screening can take on a couple of meanings, both of which can improve your standard hiring procedures.
- For one, you can conduct phone screenings, which save time on interviews. Generally your HR representative would take the lead on this. After narrowing down resumes, have your HR team contact their top few applicants for a phone screening. This will give them a chance to learn more about the individual’s qualifications and personality before bringing them in for an in-person interview or virtual meeting with other team members.
- Additionally, you can conduct pre-employment screenings such as criminal background checks for employment and pre-employment assessments. This is typically done at the end of the interview process when you’ve selected your top 2-3 candidates. Running a background check helps protect your business from costly problems later on down the road.
Although the hiring process can be a time-consuming one, it can really pay off when done tactfully. Use these three tips to help you find your way!
