If you want to find the right employees for your business, you can upload a job ad, breeze through a few interviews, and ask them to be on time for their first day, but that Not the best way.
Instead, it pays to take some extra time and focus on your hiring process as much as possible. After all, if you keep the processes going from start to finish, you’re more likely to attract the best people to your business—and that’s a win-win for everyone involved.
If you want to hire the right employee for your open position, you’ll need to start it before you publish your job ad and end it after you extend the job offer. However, the process has several stages and many complex topics to consider, so we can understand if it’s a bit daunting.
That’s why we’ve picked ten top tips that can improve your hiring process, from job descriptions to onboarding and everything in between.
If you want some more guidance, go here to see our best hiring platforms, read our verdict on the best HR software, and delve into our picks of the best US job sites.
Know What You Need
If you define the new position before writing the job description and looking for candidates, you’ll have a smoother journey through the hiring process.
It is important to make a list of the tasks and responsibilities required in the new position, and at the same time, you should define who the new employee will work with and report to in the new role. Get those inputs here too – they’ll have a pretty good idea of what the new job will really need, and they can help you make your list and final job description more realistic.
Once you’ve defined the duties of the new job, you can make a list of the skills and abilities required of your candidate — and specify what’s required and which is just a welcome bonus. Pay attention to time commitments as well.
List the benefits you can offer and the salary range available for this role, and make sure you beat the competition in both of those departments.
It’s always helpful to define what you need, and what you can offer, but keep in mind that you may have to compromise on many of these aspects if you want to land the right candidate – flexibility is key.
Once you have defined the role and what you can bring to the table, you will be in a much stronger position when it comes to writing a job description.
Your job description should be detailed and accurate – and if you’ve listed the duties and responsibilities of the role, you’ll be able to easily tick those boxes. Make sure you provide plenty of information about how you will measure success, and your company culture, salary, and job benefits.
The job description should have a good balance of information: You have to give enough information to people, but make sure it’s still attractive to potential candidates who don’t meet all of your requirements.
Also, consider the language you use. Your job posting should be engaging and engaging, so it’s worth using active, direct, and friendly language that avoids buzzwords and meaningless jargon.
Post In The Right Places
If you want to attract the best candidates, you need to post your job advertisement in the best places. This doesn’t just mean big, traditional job sites.
Obviously, you need to post your vacancy on sites like Indeed, Monster, and LinkedIn. Sites like these are the backbone of the job market, so you need to use them, but they’re not the only way.
You should be able to post on specific job boards and websites that are specific to your industry – you will be able to find switched-on candidates. List the job on your company’s career page as well, and share your job vacancy on your firm’s social media profile.
Ultimately, if you want the best chance of finding good employees, you want to cast your net as broadly as possible—and that means using a variety of methods instead of outdated sites.
Rely On Existing Employees
Your current employee is a great resource when it comes to finding the right employee for your vacancy.
If you have a referral program, your employee can point you to potential candidates so you can get in touch and see if they are interested. It’s important to make sure your employees are rewarded for this as well, so they are encouraged to go the extra mile and recommend potential applicants.
Also, list open vacancies on your company’s intranet. The right employee for the new job may be right under your nose and you may not even realize it.
Once you have shortlisted your vacancies, you are bound to get a lot of applications and resumes. If you take the time to check those documents at this stage of the process, you will get a better shortlist of candidates and save time later.
This is a given that you need to find out the past experience of the candidate to see if they are suitable for the job, but you don’t need to just make an assessment.
If you read the resume closely you can learn more about a candidate’s hard and soft skills, their personality, and their strengths and weaknesses. This means you will be in a better position to also decide which candidates you should invite for an interview.
Get Multiple References
It’s a simple tip: Don’t get just one reference for applicants. If you can get two or three references you will be able to get a different perspective on the candidate, which means you can develop a more rounded and balanced picture of their strengths and weaknesses.
Importantly, if you get multiple references, you have a better chance of verifying the veracity of what you put in your resume.
Do Your Research Online
It’s not just about references. Almost every applicant for an open position will have a LinkedIn profile that you can use to attest to the work history, education, and skills that they have included in their resume.
Don’t stop there. See if they have public Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram profiles, as a person’s social media can reveal a lot about their personality and values. This is important when you want to hire people who will fit in with your company culture and your current employees.
The interview is one of the most important aspects of the recruitment process, so it needs a lot of attention here.
Make sure you ask questions about the candidate’s experience and skills, and that you need to test their knowledge of your company. Remember that open-ended and hypothetical questions are useful because you can analyze the answers, gain insight into people’s personalities, and evaluate many of their soft skills.
You can ask creative and unexpected questions to achieve similar results, and eventually, you’ll have a better insight into a person’s adaptability, curiosity, and willingness to work, learn, and grow.
Ask all of your interviewer’s similar questions so that you can compare their answers, and also pay attention to the questions they ask you.
Consider giving interviewers a tour of your workplace so you can see how they behave around people and away from the interview room, and get second and third opinions on candidates when the interview is over – more input is always helpful.
Make The Best Offer
When you have gone through all these steps you should be ready to make an offer to the best candidate.
You need to make sure that your offer letter is professional, clear, and concise – you want this part of the process to be straightforward. Make it friendly and friendly too, so candidates know you’re excited to be involved in their business.
However, getting a job offer may not be that easy. There is no guarantee that candidates will accept, or that they will be happy with the compensation and benefits you offer. Be prepared for some negotiation and accept that you have to be flexible if you want to hire the right employee.
Keep Improving Your Process
The hiring process isn’t static, and it’s never perfect — and the best recruiters and human resources staff recognize those facts.
You should set aside time after each new hire to analyze your hiring process so that you can see what went well and what needs improvement. Ask everyone involved in the process for their feedback so you can gather a comprehensive opinion.
It’s worth doing some competitive analysis to make sure your salary and benefits package are still impressive compared to your competitors and make sure you have a slow onboarding process so that new employees are always welcome.
The hiring process is undoubtedly complicated and time-consuming, but there are plenty of smart ways to make sure you hire the right employees for your business. Start here, consider these tips, and you’ll never look back.
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