Best practices for recruiting top talent

Recruiting new employees is a great part of encouraging growth and talent in any business.  Unfortunately, this is one of the most complicated processes you can take on.  If you pick the wrong employees, treat the right candidates poorly, or aren’t thorough enough, you could lead a company into some rough years.

These are the most important things to do when recruiting talent and how they can lead you to the best professionals possible.

Make the most of job listings

Job listings are vital, but they’re only as good as the information you put into them.  If your job listings don’t make the role sound attractive, or if you can’t give enough reasons why someone would want to fill this role, you will not get any good applicants.

Try to spread these job listings as far as possible and clarify what you’re looking for in an employee.  If you’re too vague in the hopes of gaining more applicants, there’s no guarantee that the applicants you receive will be of any value to you.

Appeal to more applicants

Make sure that your recruiting ads are enticing!  Talk about what current employees love about the company, discuss what perks make this better than other available listings, and give your company the shot it deserves.

Try to avoid alienating anyone with your ad, and keep your language generally friendly.  Being transparent about the pay, the amount of money that an employee can earn will be one of the largest pulls for new applicants out there.  Even if your pay isn’t that high because the company is more recent, or the role doesn’t call for it, make it clear that employees can work up to higher pay.

All interviews are two-sided

Although your mind may be busy with questions like ‘what is sourcing?‘ and ‘how can I tell if a candidate is serious?’ you should also consider how you represent the company.  

When it’s time to interview employees, this is a two-sided street.  Some companies like to pretend that they’re the end all be all, and that employees should be thankful to receive a simple interview: but this isn’t a great way to start a relationship with a new employee.

Instead, pay attention to what you say and how you talk about the company.  Be honest when they ask questions: even if your answer is ‘I don’t know.’

Make the process simple

Don’t overcomplicate things!  Although more than one interview is quickly becoming the norm, you don’t have to run everything through group interviews.  Please pay attention to the details as they come up, but make the hiring process incredibly intuitive and easy for those you’re interviewing. 

They’ll appreciate simplicity in the middle of them trying to find a job, and you’ll be able to keep confusion about applicants at a minimum.

Consider taking up employee referrals

Employee referrals can change everything for some companies!  Consider offering employees a bonus if someone they refer gets hired and works with the company for three months.

This will give you more high-end employee leads without having to worry about hunting them down yourself.