10 Steps To A Successful Recruitment Campaign
Thank you to all of our clients who attended our recent breakfast seminars on best practice recruitment and selection. During these seminars, we discussed the 10 recognised steps involved in this process. The following summary might be of use to some of you currently involved in recruitment campaigns:
1. Define the role clearly and state the key result areas of the job. Make sure the job specification is not too vague and ambiguous.
2. Attract the right type of applicant by including some specific filters such as a minimum of 2 years of experience in a similar industry. Highlight what your company can offer them if they join your team.
3. Your screening interview should be light touch and not get into too much heavy detail. Relax your candidate and try and identify what is currently going on in their professional and personal life. Your only decision is to decide to move them forward to the next interview or not.
4. When you have finished your first round you can now administer a management or sales personality profile to your final group of candidates. By doing this you can test their different personality traits and see if they will fit comfortably into your current team.
5. Your second interview should be facilitated by another manager, which gives you time to listen and observe behaviours and answers to questions. Always ask for factual answers and specific examples to questions as past behaviours are likely to predict future performance.
6. Always check references once permission has been granted, and listen to hidden messages. Sometimes customer references given are well worth calling for a different perspective.
7. When you reach the decision phase, judge candidates against the key dimensions of the role in question and do not rely on gut feel as your only benchmark. Involve all interviewers at this key stage and compare notes taken and hard evidence presented by the candidate.
8. If necessary bring the candidate back in for a final meeting to verify they understand the duties and responsibilities of the role. Before you issue a formal job offer, deal with any concerns or questions that either party may have.
9. Make sure your offer / contract of employment is clear and specific and avoid vague and ambiguous corporate jargon.
10. Have a structured induction and training plan ready to present to your new recruit in advance of their start date, as this gives them a comfort level with you and your organisation, and reduces the likelihood that something will go wrong. In short, start as you mean to continue.
As we all agreed at the seminar, recruitment and selection is not an exact science but putting the right structure and filters in place minimises the risk of hiring the wrong person.
Article by Austin Halpin