Business Bullets - People

Bringing in new people to your business can be incredibly time consuming - a few simple (and inexpensive) tools and techniques can make the recruiting process far more efficient.

Job Boards

Job boards are invaluable in any recruitment process but it can be hard to filter through the torrent of unsuitable responses you are bound to get by posting on generalist job boards like Indeed or Monster. Specialist job sites in your industry can help massively when filling specialist roles by discouraging ‘job spamming’ by candidates. Job sites with protracted sign-up policies and systems can help, as they are a big discouragement to time-wasters.

Some job boards offer advanced filtering on job applications, meaning you can filter out a lot of unsuitable CVs without trawling through every application that’s come in. It should be noted, however, that some filters can be overzealous, and you could filter out applicants who would be perfect, so it’s always worth giving the rejected list a look over before totally resigning them to the ‘no’ pile.

Interview Planning

Effective interview planning can make or break a recruitment process and it’s a step many hiring managers leave until the last minute. However much planning you do though, don’t just copy a question list from online – your vacant role is unique, the candidate is unique, so how do you find out if they’re a fit with generic questions? Tip: it’s not by asking ‘What’s your biggest weakness?’

Fundamentally, there are two things you are looking for from any job interview: Is this person a fit for the job, and is this person a fit for the company? How you find these out depends on the volume of applicants you have, and the calibre of the selection process. Ideally you should be interviewing no more than 5 applicants for any one role, unless the search is a difficult, long-term project. Any more, and one person can’t feasibly interview all the applicants in a reasonable period of time, which can cause disagreements down the line when it comes to selection.

Having a short shortlist and a persistent hiring manager or team is advantageous because questions can be fluid, interviews can delve deeper and the interview process can be shortened greatly, saving time and money.

Social Media

Social media is the lifeblood of many recruitment agencies today, with over 75% of recent job leavers using LinkedIn to inform their career decision. LinkedIn and Twitter are great tools to ascertain the work culture a candidate is used to and to quickly scan their work history and role suitability. LinkedIn is a great way to find the 70% of job-seekers who are not actively looking for a new role and nowadays is one of the only ways to find passive candidates other than cold calling and referrals. Using social media for recruitment allows your hiring manager to gain a plethora of insight into their candidates and quickly cut down the longlist as well as opening up a huge pool of top talent – and remember, top talent rarely applies for jobs.

Technology

Whilst we’d always suggest performing face-to-face interviews as much as possible, sometimes its just not feasible to sit down with each candidate. Skype calls are almost essential in today’s relocation-heavy recruitment industry and give additional insight over and above a simple phone call. The ability to pick up on candidates’ body language and presentation gives you an extra peek into what this person would be like as a colleague, which is fundamentally what interviews are all about.

Tools such as Skype for Business also allow candidates to send across appropriate files as and when they come up in the conversation, and video chats can be recorded for later viewing by the relevant decision makers in your business, allowing for a seamless, paperless process.