In last week’s blog post we talked about the 3 biggest mistakes to avoid when recruiting a new manager. It may have brought some awful memories of long and never ending recruitment days when you read it. Sorry if that was the case! There’s nothing worse than having to jump over a million hurdles to get approval, just to end up in a meeting room interviewing the wrong candidates for hours. No wonder you’re dreading recruiting for your next vacancy!
Getting the right people in your team is crucial to succeed in business, we all know that. Building your team should be exciting and it all starts by getting your recruitment process right. Everything becomes much easier when you have the right plan in place, so today I want to lay out all the key steps you need to follow if you want to love recruitment again. Let’s take a look at what these key steps are.
There are many reasons why you may decide to recruit a new employee for your business. Whether you’re recruiting because someone has resigned, after there's been an internal promotion or to gear up for a seasonal or peak trade period, you should be very clear on what the real need for the business is. This will guide the whole recruitment process.
Creating a job description is a great way to articulate what this need looks like. It will provide clarity on what the role looks like and you can also use some of the information for advertising purposes. It’s easy enough if you’re filling an existing position, although it’s a great time to review whether the job description is up to date. Think about what tasks they need to perform. What skills do they need to have for the role? What’s the relevant experience they need to have? What departments or stakeholders will they deal with and how often will they do it?
Once you’re clear on the position description, it’s time to create the recruitment plan. Think about how long the next steps are going to take and what resources you need. Here are some things you may want to consider:
When you get responses, you’ll need to review them and make a list of the best applicants you want to interview that are the best match. Think wisely about how many people you shortlist and move forward to be interviewed because interviewing is highly time-consuming if you want to do it right.
Interviewing is the most crucial step because it’s your opportunity to get to know the person you’ve shortlisted. It’s your chance to ask all the relevant questions and find out if the candidate is the right fit for the job. Having the right mix of situational, skills and behavioural based will prevent any unwanted surprises further down the track. You may also decide to do more than one interview, depending on your recruitment plan and/or company policy.
Once you’ve selected a candidate, it’s time to move on to the background check by engaging with the references provided by the candidate. Under no circumstance skip this step! This is one of the 3 biggest mistakes we shared in the previous blog and it’s got fatal circumstances. It’s usually done over the phone, so it helps to have a few questions jotted down to guide your conversation with the reference.
After you’ve done your due diligence, it’s time to provide the applicant with a formal offer to complete the necessary legal documentation. If you’ve done everything right up to this point, this should be just a formality to seal the deal.
Benjamin Franklin said: “Failing to plan is planning to fail”. And when it comes to a recruitment process, this is 100% true. It pays off to take the time and ensure you get the process right, find the right people or agencies to support the process and get the right candidate to fill your position. Plan ahead and avoid any unwanted surprises!
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