Three Ways to Improve Your Recruitment Process

Recruiting is a tricky thing for any company, whether you have an HR team to do some of the heavy lifting for you, or are dealing with the whole process yourself. Hiring a new employee is a big decision that could impact your company for years to come (arguably, if it doesn�t you�ve hired the wrong person). The way to get this decision right is to make sure you�re finding the right candidates and getting as much information from them as possible, so you know you�re making an informed decision.

These three tips can make all the difference between hiring the best person for the job, and making a terrible mistake.

Use a Good Recruitment Firm

If you�re looking for specialised staff to fill high end jobs, then you�re going to want to go to recruitment firms that work specifically in that remit. Finding an Executive Search Firm that works for you is an investment of time that will pay off over the course of years. Find one that specialises in your sector, in finding high quality staff and that has a primary contact that�s sympathetic to your needs and tries to find the right candidate for you, not merely round up anyone they happen to have on their books.

Plan Ahead

Write a specification for the person you want to employ that�s specific to the role and your business. Think about the needs you have: there�s no generic �right candidate�, there�s only the right candidate for your business.

If all your goals are about expansion, for example, that has to inform every level of your business including recruitment � even for roles that aren�t directly related. The ongoing expansion will affect every level of the company and every employee even if they aren�t at the cliff-face. Looking for candidates that have dealt with changes in previous roles, and capitalised on them in the same way you�d want them to do for you.

Questions and Testing

Make sure you�re using the interview to elicit the best possible information from your candidate. Your aim here is to give them an arena to show off their skills and experience but also ensure you are pinning them down on specifics: showboating doesn�t help you or them.

Ask open questions to begin with. Questions that open with �tell me about a time when�� that give candidates space to tell you about their achievements, but then pin them down on details to find out exactly how they�ve solved relevant problems and created results.

Approaching recruitment carefully means you get the employees you need to go the distance.