The success of your business depends on your ability to find and hire the best possible people. However, it can be tough to know how to do this. For example, should you be focusing on recruiting people through social media platforms such as LinkedIn or Facebook? Or is it better to have a specific application form? Of course, all of this will depend on your business, your needs, your expectations, and the resources you have available, but there are some things every company can focus on that will make it easier for you to find the right people.
Distinguish Between Recruiting and Hiring
To make sure you’re taking the right approach, it’s important to first understand the difference between recruiting and hiring. Essentially, recruiting is the process of reaching out to currently employed people to convince them to leave their current position to join your team. Hiring, on the other hand, involves you posting an advertisement for your open position you need to fill.
The two are similar in that they end with you reaching out to someone to offer them a job, but beyond that, they require different approaches. Mainly, when you’re recruiting, you need to show people why it would be worth it for them to leave the comfort and security of their current position for the one you are offering.
How to Succeed When Recruiting and Hiring
No matter which type of business you run, and whether or not you’re doing recruiting or hiring, the following things are going to be essential to your success:
- Make use of employer branding. This is how you show prospective employees what it will be like to work for your company. You need to include information about benefits, professional development, salaries, perks, and culture, and you should be displaying this information on your website, job descriptions, recruiting messaging, and job search websites.
- Work on your job descriptions. Job seekers have lots of choices, so it’s important you work to catch their eye when they come across your posting. Your goal should be to attract qualified candidates, but you don’t want to be too specific with your requirements because this can narrow the candidate pool and prevent you from bringing in someone who can be a true game changer.
- Advertise, advertise, advertise. After you’ve nailed your employer branding and written a killer job description, it’s time to get the word out. Advertise your job posting on as many job portals as possible so that you can attract a wide audience and a large, diverse candidate pool.
- Do proper interview prep. The person applying for the job isn’t the only one who needs to impress during the interview. As an employer, you need to not only ask the right questions to determine fit, but you also need to make sure you’re organised and prepared so that you can provide the candidate with a good experience when they come into your office.
- Measure your success. How long does it take you to hire? How many candidates do you get to apply? And how long do those who you hire stay at the company? All of these stats will help you find out if you’re doing things right or if you need to make a change.
- Focus on inclusion and diversity. Having a diverse workforce makes your company both more attractive and productive. Make sure to have a strategy in place for attracting all sorts of candidates.
Of course, there is a lot more that goes into successfully recruiting and hiring, but here are the basics for a good approach which you can use to build a winning team.