Growing a strong firm all starts with recruiting the right talent.
the recruiting and hiring process is very costly for businesses, so how do you efficiently and reliably hire the top talent for your firm? Many smaller firms struggle to attract even acceptable talent and big ones often hire some terrible candidates.
Recruiting Has Significant Hidden Costs
A Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM) study found that it costs an average of $4,129 to hire someone and on average it takes 42 days to fill a position. Worse, not having the talent on staff means losing at least 42 days of productivity and another six months of less than 100 percent productivity as a new hire comes up to speed. Worse, there is no assurance that candidate you hired who interviewed so well will work out and you may have to start the process all over.
That’s why renowned business guru, sales trainer, and business legend, Brian Tracy, advises you have a choice of two strategies: “Hire in haste and repent at leisure or hire slow and fire quickly (i.e., if you made a bad choice anyway, admit it and start over, you just cost yourself more by delaying.)”
[quotesright]Knowing the how to hire effectively will produce the best person for the job and cost you the least in terms of time and money in the final analysis. [/quotesright]
How to Recruit Top Talent for Your Firm
Recruiting top talent is half the battle of having a successful business. (The other half of the battle is knowing how to retain and lead your talent – hint: they are related.)
Follow the principles and strategies in our guide to find great people who will improve your business.
Understand What You Want
Take some time to determine what it is you want from your employees. Part of understanding how to recruit employees is knowing what you want and need from potential candidates.
For example, make a note of all of the essential skills and qualities you are looking for in an employee. What traits do your best employees doing that job possess, what skills?
Also think about your company culture and how you want the candidate to fit into that.
Conduct Your Search in the Right Places
Key to recruitment strategies is looking for the top-quality candidates in the right places. If your business industry has specific job boards then make sure you post on those first.
Alternatively, you can post on general job boards. If appropriate, ask you employees if they know someone they would recommend.
Remember the power of social media too, especially LinkedIn; there is a large pool of professional and top-quality candidates online. And of course, you can always turn to professional recruiters who specialize in recruiting truly hard to get talent.
Utilize as many relevant places to search for your candidates as possible, because if you receive a lot of interest, the chances are that you will find great people who want to be part of your business.
Create a Strong Marketing Stance
You need to set yourself apart from other businesses that are hiring. Consider this a task that falls under marketing!
Marketing your business in a way that it attracts top-quality candidates is essential. You need to think about why they should work with you. What do you have to offer them, which other businesses don't have? [quotesright]Sell your job opportunity as hard as you sell a product. Be remarkable. But be honest: lying won’t get you anywhere. [/quotesright]
To do this, you need to provide a detailed description of the role, including
- A short intro about your business, including your mission and aims,
- A description of what the role will entail (what can the candidate expect to be doing on a daily basis?),
- A listing of what skills and qualifications the candidate needs to have, and
- The details of what you offer the candidate (i.e. benefits and career development).
You also need to talk about your company culture. This is becoming increasingly important for younger generations, such as millennials and generation Z.
Research conducted by Deloitte found that 82 percent of respondents believe that culture is a potential competitive advantage.
Reach Out to Passive Job Seeking Candidates
Don't just assume that potential candidates will come to you. Use job boards and social media to find great people who you think will fit the role and reach out to them.
Look at potential top-quality candidates by viewing their profiles on job boards and/or social media. There may be candidates who aren't actively seeking a new job, but who might be interested in what you are offering.
Be sure to reach out to people in your network too, in case they know potential candidates who would be a great fit for the role.
Tailor Your Pitch
When it comes to contacting potential candidates, you need to make sure that you tailor your pitch to them.
The best people are often career driven, which means that they have clear career goals. [quotesright]Before reaching out to your candidates, think about what they want to achieve. [/quotesright]
Make sure you listen carefully to what they want from you. Recruitment is a two-way street after all. It’s a fit thing, right motivations, right skills, right personality…it all counts.
If your business can't offer them what they need or there is not a fit, discover it early then save yourself time and move onto another top prospect who is the right fit.
Interviewing Strategies
Once you have compiled a list of the top talent, you need to work out an effective interviewing strategy.
Ensure you conduct interviews that reflect well on your business, so make sure you help your candidate feel comfortable and maintain professionalism throughout the interview.
In order to recruit the best, you need to ask candidates a series of questions that will help you to evaluate if they will be the right fit for the role, for example:
- What interests you about this position and company?
- Give me some examples where you had to deal with a difficult colleague and how did you overcome this challenge?
After they pass your initial screening your next step is to have two or three others in your company interview them, especially the people they will be working with or managing. [quotesright]Your people can spot a jerk or fraud 100 times faster than you can because they’ll see a different person show up for the interview than you did. [/quotesright]
Use Science
If the interview went well, your next step is to use behavioral and skill/motivation assessments to discover if those areas match what you need for that job. A good example is a salesperson. Do they know how to sell professionally to today’s buyer? What motivates them and is it the same motivation seen in all top sales talent at your firm and others?
You’ll save a lot of time, effort, and avoid hirer’s regret by putting these scientifically validated assessment tools to work in your firm. They are not just for the “big guys” either, they are easily affordable and a fabulous return on your investment compared to what a bad hire can cost you.
How Can You Attract the Top Talent?
Are you looking for easier recruitment strategies to ensure that you attract the best of the best?
According to Vaughan Paul, vice president of Optus, "Don’t oversell the company during recruitment – be transparent about the company’s idiosyncrasies, warts and all."
With internet access available for candidates to conduct their own research about your business, they will be able to easily find out about your company, so don't lie during the recruitment process.
[quotesright]Instead, you need to create a company where top quality talent wants to work. [/quotesright] In order to do this, you must ensure your current team is your business's biggest fans.
If your employees are content with your company, then they will leave good reviews on websites such as Glassdoor, which potential candidates will see. When was the last time your checked your profile there?
[quotes]The Cliff Notes version: Create a company culture and environment where the top talent will want to work.[/quotes]
You Don’t Have to Go It Alone
If you would like to have our help building that type of culture in your company and putting behavioral assessments to work in your hiring process, let’s talk. We have hundreds of strategies and behavioral assessments that will help you hire smarter. Let’s discuss your opportunities; there’s never any obligation. Brian Tracy USA: 877.433.6225 Email Me feedback@focalpointcoaching.com
