6 Tips to Improve your Hiring Process

Hiring new talent is so much more than just browsing resumes and conducting interviews. The success of your business is largely shaped by the people working with you. And hiring the team perfectly suited to your organization takes more than just routine work. 

Recruitment has many nuances that need to be considered and implemented with precision. Factors like a poorly crafted job description or miscommunication can adversely affect your hiring. Here are 7 time-tested tips to attract talent and meet your recruitment numbers:

Build a strong brand– Creating a credible and strong employer brand is an absolute must-do if you wish to attract the best talent in the industry. Studies show that more than 70% of professionals are not actively looking for a job but are open to new opportunities. A strong brand can attract these passive candidates as well as lead to a lower attrition rate. 

To get things on track, entrepreneurs and leaders need to manage their brands well by responding to comments, feedback and reviews timely. Updating the company’s profile and sharing the latest news about the organization are also great ways to keep prospective employees interested and hooked. 

When you are perceived as a highly desired organization to work with, active recruiting will automatically take a back seat as you will be flooded with applications. 

Avoid time lapse and delays– When you’re planning to hire a particular applicant, move fast. Studies show that the best candidates go off the market in less than 2 weeks. So a recruiter needs to keep a desirable candidate on the radar by keeping him engaged through discussions and timely updates. Follow up with the candidate often and answer questions promptly throughout the recruitment process. It is unwise to let the applicant feel that the company is half hearted in its approach. This is where automated recruitment can help the HR immensely by reducing resume screening time and using algorithms to assess and select the suitable candidates. 

Writing effective job descriptions– It’s time to ditch the boring and done-to-death job descriptions that we have been reading and writing all along. There are 2 kinds of JDs- the Needs-Supplies approach and the Demands-Abilities approach. While the first one focuses on how the company can help the candidate grow, the Demands-Abilities approach talks about what the company expects from the candidate. Studies show that candidates who respond to the Needs-Supplies job listings are rated higher than the ones responding to the Demand-Abilities job listings. Recruiters need to put more careful thought into writing job descriptions, shifting the focus to how the candidate can benefit instead of providing a list of skills and job responsibilities (which is important too, but the approach needs to be a more long-term one showcasing how the company is a great place to work in).

Social Media– There’s little that can have more impact on millenials than social media. And a smart recruiter will make the best of it by actively showcasing the best of the brand through a well thought out social media strategy. 

Similarly, use social media and digital platforms to do a background check on prospective candidates. With most people being highly active on these platforms, it is surprising how much information you can glean from just studying a prospective employee’s posts and profile. While allowing a candidate’s social media profile to become a factor when hiring may not be completely legally admissible, it is indeed a great way to understand the character and personality traits of someone you’re thinking of hiring.  

Focus on personality traits– This is a long term approach that a recruiter must embrace. Even though skill sets are crucial, when hiring for a particular position, the candidate’s personality traits can also determine how well (or poorly) suited a person is to the job. When matching personality traits with a position, a trait like empathy would be more suitable for a nurse or a social worker rather than an engineer or lawyer.

Improve the interview process- While interviewers are mainly focused on technical competence when hiring for a particular position, sometimes they clearly miss out on the bigger picture. Traits like emotional intelligence, temperament, ability to learn quickly and motivation are passed over as relatively unimportant. And this is one of the reasons why in spite of having the right skill sets, some employees can eventually turn out to be poor hires. Other factors that result in poor interviews are a lack of time, lack of domain knowledge or simply a lack of confidence of the interviewer. It is essential to let the interviewer ask questions to understand what’s important for him/her. Setting realistic expectations during the interview is also important as the candidate needs accurate information in order to make a career decision. 

Pod.ai , a recruitment automation platform can help you hire better and more efficiently through AI and data analytics. Technology is revolutionizing the recruitment industry and platforms like Pod.ai can help you optimize the entire process and meet your targets. To know more, visit https://pod.ai/