If you’re like most business owners, your answer to this question will revolve around customers. Perhaps you’re struggling to acquire new customers through your marketing campaigns. Or you might find it difficult to deliver a seamless customer experience and minimize the churn rate.
But amidst this rigmarole, you’re likely neglecting a crucial aspect that impacts the growth of your business. Finding and retaining the top talent for suitable roles in your company is just as important as attracting new customers.
This is because you need skilled employees to sell your products, nurture leads, provide customer support, and carry out numerous other business operations. In their absence, even the most outstanding product and marketing campaigns will fail to grow your business. But according to a Deloitte report, finding qualified talent is the top recruitment challenge most hiring managers face.
That’s why it is essential for today’s organizations to outline and implement a robust recruitment process. Simply put, it defines the steps you’re going to take to find the right talent for your company. From writing a persuasive job description to onboarding new recruits - a recruitment process involves various complex steps.
Considering today’s turbulent job market, it’s become even more crucial to develop a rock-solid recruitment process. That’s why in this blog, we’ve outlined a few effective strategies to help you optimize your company’s recruitment process. Let’s take a look.
1. Make the Job Description Irresistible
What’s the first thing that comes to your mind when someone mentions the term “job description”? Chances are you’re already imagining a wall of text with a few pointers outlining the required qualifications and responsibilities associated with a specific role.
Unfortunately, these run-of-the-mill job descriptions are a thing of the past. Today, you can’t grab the attention of potential candidates with a list of duties and responsibilities. Instead, you need to use the job description as a selling tool and entice them to work for your company.
The key is to showcase your company culture, as well as the mission and values. Highlight perks and opportunities that a new recruit can leverage once they join your company. Apart from salary and incentives, make sure you outline the kind of career growth they will experience on the job.
Also, be specific about the skills you’re looking for in an ideal candidate. For instance, instead of writing vague descriptions, such as “5 years of digital marketing experience”, you could draft the description as follows - “5 years of experience in developing and running digital marketing campaigns for retail brands”.
2. Deliver an Excellent Candidate Experience
Despite the growing number of furloughs and layoffs due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the job market is still predominantly candidate-driven at present. That is, of course, if you want to recruit candidates with the right qualifications, skills, and experience.
And the best way of attracting such candidates is to provide them with a positive candidate experience. Start by simplifying the application process and minimizing the number of steps. Otherwise, it could result in the best candidates abandoning their applications mid-way.
It’s a good idea to be transparent about your recruitment process. A simple technique is to create a dedicated career site or a “How We Hire” page on your website outlining various steps and what they involve. Also, you should mention the estimated timeline so that potential recruits have a clear idea of how long they need to wait at every step.
Additionally, you should consider adding a dedicated “Career FAQs” page on your website to address common questions potential recruits are likely to ask in different stages of recruitment. Make sure you regularly update the career site and FAQs pages to create a stellar impression on top talent.
Considering the stressful and volatile circumstances of the pandemic, it’s wiser to be flexible about scheduling interviews. If a candidate can’t make it to your office, consider interviewing them online on their preferred date and time.
Likewise, it’s essential to stay in touch with potential recruits throughout the recruitment process. Even after you’ve hired a candidate, make sure you provide them with suitable resources and tools to help them prepare for their job. Don’t forget to send personalized and mindful rejection letters to the remaining candidates.
3. Hire a Recruitment Agency
If you’ve just launched your company, it’s natural to wonder if it even makes sense to pay a recruitment agency when you’ve already got HR managers on your payroll? Isn’t it more convenient to let your HR managers handle the recruitment process? However, there are several crucial factors why you should use a recruitment agency, even if you have a dedicated HR team.
Here’s the thing - the HR department has to oversee several other business processes in addition to recruitment. From implementing employee welfare policies to addressing complaints from employees - they already have their hands full. The last thing you should do is put the burden of recruitment on their shoulders.
While hiring a recruitment agency might involve a higher upfront cost, it’s going to pay the right dividends in the long term. They handle the complex task of identifying and vetting suitable candidates and even help you create an awesome candidate experience.
Conclusion
The success of your company ultimately depends on the people who’re running the day-to-day operations. Make sure you identify your hiring needs and craft a suitable job description that highlights your company culture. Also, outsourcing the hiring process to a recruitment agency will make it faster and more efficient.
