It’s a great time for job hunters. With unemployment levels remaining at their lowest for years, the job market is currently largely candidate-driven, with businesses vying for skilled workers.
Here we’ve outlined the five biggest challenges of hiring top talent and how to overcome them.
Identifying quality candidates
The key to hiring quality staff is being able to identify which candidates will bring the ideal skills, experience and attitude for your business, and that means understanding what makes your business tick before you go looking for new people. In addition to identifying their skills and experience, a person’s social intelligence – the soft skills they use to interact with their environment and the people around them — defines them far more than their quantitative intelligence.
Determine which soft skills your company needs the most (creative, leadership, communication skills etc.), then create a consistent, scalable process for evaluating them during the interview process.
Recruit for cultural fit
This one may seem obvious, but often organisations can be in such a hurry to fill a role that they don’t spend enough time considering what it is they really want.
Culture should also be a top priority within the recruitment process. Your employer brand, the thing that will attract new employees to you, is essential to get right if you are to attract people who fit that culture and deter those who would be more effective in a different one. If you recruit purely for the job rather than the job and culture, you can end up with employees who don’t have the right attitude and behaviour that your business needs to thrive.
Involving co-workers in the hiring process
A survey from SAP revealed that in most organisations (94%) multiple people are involved in the hiring process, which can be highly beneficial, but 86% wished that collaboration was easier.
Foresight is important here. Ensure that all those involved in the hiring process for a particular role know in advance, understand their precise remit and the chain of decision-making. Agreeing in advance on the required criteria for the role, and how to score applicants, also helps avoid multiple staff members clashing over who they like best.
Screening CVs effectively
In a recent survey, 52% of employers said the most difficult part of the recruitment process was whittling down the applications effectively.
One key to screening applicants well is to really think through well ahead of time into the essential and desirable criteria. Look at the qualities, skills and experience of people already thriving in that role, rather than going off a hunch.
Set up a sheet to record the applicant’s eligibility, the criteria they do or don’t meet, and other important notes like salary expectation or location so you build a clear picture of who this candidate is.
Building a strong employer brand
Businesses spend enormous amounts of money developing and disseminating their brand, through design, marketing and PR to sell their product or service better. But what about your brand as an employer?
One of the most important things to a lot of employees these days is that their employer values and appreciates them…and shows it. So, if you can demonstrate at the interview that you recognise just how important your employees are to the success of your business by investing in them through training and developing their skills and talents, this sends out the right message and increases your chances of recruiting well. Employees who feel motivated, trusted and engaged will not only be more productive but will also become ambassadors for you as an employer.
So think about messaging, and how you position your organisation as a top employer when advertising job roles.
At Kirsty Craig Associates we go above and beyond to help your business thrive through recruiting and developing the very best talent for you. Speak to our team today to see how we can help you.