Recruiting the right people is important for every business and getting it wrong can cost both time and money.
Depending on the role, CIPD data shows that it could set your company back up to £12000 and the repercussions don’t stop there.
Bringing the wrong person on board can affect things such as employee morale and productivity. It can take away time from your management team and potentially affect your ability to deliver the level of customer service you pride yourself on.
Whilst you can’t completely stop the wrong applicants from slipping through, you can take steps toward preventing bad hires.
Here are 5 ways to avoid hiring the wrong people.
- Provide clear job descriptions
This tip may seem like an obvious suggestion, but it’s surprising how often employers pass over this one. Serious job seekers will want to see a well-crafted job description before they apply. This is the perfect opportunity to sell your job to the right candidate. Take time to consider and review your job description and person specification before it goes online. Are they filled with jargon or down-to-earth language? Is the information long-winded or succinct and to the point? Determining the answers to these questions can make the difference between a lousy ad and an effective one.
- Offer marketing resources to job seekers
Most job seekers will do a fair amount of research nowadays before they hit apply. This can include visiting an employer’s career site, looking through social media accounts looking at previous employee feedback. As an employer, you can use job seekers’ research as an opportunity to filter out people who don’t align. Firstly, and if you haven’t already, you can offer resources that can easily be found on the web. A careers page on your website is a great place to start. As well as listing your current vacancies this should have a clear message of what it’s like to work in your business. Doing so will help candidates more easily decipher whether your opportunity is right for them.
- Get the interview process right
Ensure that the interview times are pre-agreed and in everyone’s diary to avoid any un-necessary delays. Before you interview the candidate include anyone with a decision-making power into a conversation around a) what you’re looking for from the candidate b) ensure are you all on the same page around the job role/requirements, c) make it timebound and clear to the candidate and d) discuss how you are going to sell the business and opportunity to the person sat in front of you. It’s a good idea to interview with a colleague or two so that you can discuss each other’s opinions and perceptions post interview.
- Proactively target candidates
Instead of solely relying on job seekers to find you, go out and find them! Proactive recruitment is a critical step toward avoiding the wrong hire. Start by identifying where your ideal candidates spend their time. Whether that means an online group, professional association or on social media make sure you spend some time there, too. When you meet someone who impresses you and you’d like to work with someday, save their information in your back pocket. Then when a position opens up for them, you can quickly reach out with the details.
- Work in partnership with a recruiter
This tip may seem like an obvious suggestion, but it’s surprising how often employers undervalue the benefit that a recruiter brings to the process. See them as a subject matter specialist, a ‘go to’ person for advice on the candidate marketplace, salary surveys and use them for support in sourcing the right candidate and providing you with more than just a CV to determine suitability for interview. A great recruiter (wink wink) will also help you with the interview process and understand in a candidate led market what other opportunities that candidate has happening and what you’ll need to do to secure them.
Avoid making a bad hire by implementing these tips into your recruitment strategy. A few simple adjustments to the way you advertise, market and interview is a step forward to more effective recruiting.
For further advice and support on recruiting the right people, call our team of talented recruiters on 0114 3211873.