Avoid putting your business plans at risk by taking too long to hire or spending money in the wrong place, with the right recruitment tools.   Create a smooth and pain free route to your next hire with these 7 steps to a better recruitment process. 

1. Choose the right media for your recruitment advertising

If your recruitment strategy is to put a boring 'We are looking for...' notice on Seek each time you need to hire, you are selling yourself short.  Technology is moving quickly and new media choices are launching every day – this means the way people are looking for and finding employment is changing too. From targeted social media that uses location, employment and education information, through to job search engines that capture people searching using certain keywords, you need to ensure you are advertising in the media that your target market is looking at.

If you are not a media expert yourself, (and let's be honest, HR teams wear lots of hats but Advertising Guru isn't usually one of them), then find yourself a partner that can help.  Your marketing team or advertising agency could be a good start. Otherwise look for a specialist recruitment tools provider with an on demand advertising service.  Things to consider include design and copy writing services to ensure your job ads are unique, branded and stand out, as well as employer branding ideas to help you  get across multiple media and in front of your desired job seeker audience.

2. Do you understand how your employment brand is perceived in your marketplace? 

If your CEO was to ask 100 random people in your industry what they thought of your organisation, what would they say?

• Would they know you?
• Would they be interested to know you’re hiring?

Your employer brand value proposition (EBVP), is why candidates would choose to work with you instead of your competitors and what makes your staff passionate about working for you.  Your 'employer brand' is the sum of these factors as an image and reputation in the market place.  If good candidates don't know who you are or why they'd want to apply to your vacancy, then it’s time to get started with some awareness!

If you think you are too small to have an employment brand, think again. If you have advertised more than 6 times in the past 12 month period, it's worth considering a proactive focus on you employment ‘image’ in the marketplace . 

How do people get an impression of your company's ‘employment brand’?

It starts from how you present your adverts – how professional are they and what they tell someone about your organisation and your team. 

But don't forget, your actual recruitment process plays an important role.  66% of job seekers will share negative experiences during the hiring process, so that will have an impact on your employer brand.   For example, how responsive are you to job seekers when they apply to you? Have you acknowledged all applications and updated all candidates on the outcome of their application? How quickly do you process applications? Are candidates waiting 2, 3, 4 or more weeks to hear the outcome of their application?

All these interactions (or lack thereof), are creating an impression of your business in the market, otherwise known as your employment brand. If you have an inefficient recruitment process due to lack of time or too many applications to handle, your employment brand will no doubt be suffering.  Consideration of your employer brand not just for large corporate firms with big advertising budgets, it's something organisations of all size .   

So, with this in mind:

3. Automate your application process

If you are still managing applications via your inbox, not only is this a mess, but you may be missing out on some crucial data. A candidate management system can be a life saver when it comes to managing applications quickly and efficiently. There are many options on the market with varying price tags. The Talent Propeller Response Management system starts from $90 per job.

The faster you manage applications the more positive the candidate experience is, and the better your employment brand will become.

4. Choose what you outsource

When it comes to recruitment, you don't have to spend a fortune by outsourcing the entire process. Consider all the things you need to do:

• Advertising
• Candidate Management
• Screening
• Phone interviews
• Reference checks
• Skills and aptitude pre employment tests

Outsourcing the areas that take up time and/or cause you the most pain can increase your productivity significantly. After all, time is money! Here, real companies talk about how they've reduced their time spent on recruitment by 44% and reduced time to hire by 70%, using an outsource partner. 

5. Calculate the total cost of your recruitment

If you are new to recruitment or have it as one of the many jobs you are responsible for in the company, you may be shocked when you add up your hourly rate with the cost of advertising, to reach a ‘total cost per hire’ price.

The average company spends:

• $500 on advertising one vacancy,
• 6 hours to review all applications, schedule interviews and meet candidates face to face.

This means your cost per hire can quickly escalate to $1000 plus and why 'doing it yourself' is often false economy.  When considering whether a recruitment partner is for you, consider their fees in comparison to the time and cost of keeping it all in house.  We recommend a low, fixed price solution to give you a clear budget to work, but sometimes even commission-based recruiters can be worth their weight in time saving. 

6. Skills test to see if someone is right for the job

The typist who can’t type, the social media writer who can't spell and the accounts clerk who doesn’t excel at Excel...it's a Hiring Manager's worst nightmare once the contract is signed. 

Don’t take the risk, add pre employment tests as part of your recruitment process to make an informed decision.  From practical competency checks such as typing speed and numeracy, to IT skills such as HTML and Java, through to personality and their aptitude for the job, there is a wide range of accessible, cost effective tests available.  

Not doing so can end up costing you a lot of money and wasted time. Another consideration is the credit check, criminal check and license check. If your new hire is likely to drive a company car, handle company finances or be involved in confidential material, investing in a check such as this could save you thousands of lost dollars.

7. Don’t skip reference checks

The final but critical part of the recruitment process is to conduct a proper reference check. A well-constructed reference should highlight for you the strengths and weaknesses of your candidate and it should be provided by a previous manager.

Many companies cut corners on taking a detailed reference as their mind is ‘already made up’ and they simply want to confirm their assumptions on a person. This is a dangerous approach to take; we recommend keeping an open mind (and ensuring the person doing the actual reference check does too).   We once did a reference check on 'the perfect' candidate, who had charmed everyone. He claimed 5 years of experience in his previous company, blitzing all KPIs and only leaving because he wanted the next step in his career.  His referee set us straight by advising he'd worked for only 6 weeks before being fired for incompetence. 

A proper reference should confirm the identity of the referee and confirm it is the candidate’s prior manager.  Fair and balanced questions that require a full answer (not just a yes or no) should provide a balanced overview of a person’s ability in the role they performed.

Be cautious about referees who claim your candidate has no areas for improvement or skills to develop. No one is perfect and a genuine previous manager who has worked with someone over time can usually provide at least one insight into how to get the best out of someone. 

Interested in any of our on demand services? Learn more about how your local team can help save your business time and money.