Finding the perfect candidate can be a struggle. With so many candidates to choose from, how can you be sure that you are selecting the best and the one that will stay with you in the long term?
It’s not easy, and you are certainly not alone in your battle to find the perfect employee, but refining your recruitment process could help. Here are five easy steps you can follow to help you.
Improve Your Recruitment Outcomes
1. Make a plan
Recruitment is a long process. It’s easy to get distracted and prolong it by putting off looking through those CVs or holding those interviews.
Setting a clear timeframe early on will help keep you on track. Start by thinking about when you want your new employee to start and work backwards. How long do you need for each stage of the process?
Once you have an idea, set clear goals and deadlines. Knowing when you want to interview and when you need to have reviewed all the applicants will keep you on schedule. It’s also a great idea to let a trusted colleague into this plan so they can help keep you accountable and move the process along.
2. Know what you want
How can you expect to hire the perfect candidate if you don’t know what the perfect candidate should be like? Spend dedicated time really thinking about the role and what skills, experience, and qualities are required.
Consider how you define your values and the culture you want to cultivate in your workplace. Imagine exactly how you see a prospective employee fitting into that picture.
Equally as important, think about what you don’t want – are there any qualities, personalities, or values that will not fit in with your business? Once you know, write it down, and produce a set of criteria.
Human error is inherent in many recruitment processes; it is natural to want to hire the candidates you clicked with, but they may not be the best for the role. Having a clear image of what you are looking for when you are reviewing applications or conducting interviews will reduce the desire to go purely on gut feeling.
3. Use psychometric testing
CVs and interviews are a good indicator of a candidate’s skills, experience and personality. Still, CVs can be embellished, and interview nerves can prevent a candidate’s real personality from shining through.
Using psychometric tests designed with your ideal criteria in mind will enable you to determine quickly and easily how suited a candidate is to a role and also how they will behave in your company. Are they likely to get on with the rest of your team? Do they have a similar work ethic?
eTalent applies psychometric and behavioural testing early on in the process. This is extremely beneficial, as it stops you from spending time on applications from unsuitable candidates and makes you spend longer evaluating ones you might have otherwise dismissed early on.
Our software also helps you get the most out of your interview time with the candidate. Our psychometric testing eliminates the need for small talk and broad questions designed to get to know the candidate. With existing knowledge of your candidate, you can be more detailed and productive with your questioning.
Plus, while in other circumstances, you might find yourself spending your time verifying the details of your candidate’s CV, our psychometric testing instead allows you to concentrate on the questions that are really relevant to the position.
4. Use technology
Technology is inherent in our lives, so why shouldn’t it be integral to successful recruitment?
eTalent is an all in one recruitment solution that takes care of everything from the initial job posting to the shortlisting to the rejection emails. Every aspect of the process is streamlined, and you’ll find your submissions all in one place along with online application forms, removing the need for unnecessary paper. Your job description can easily be posted in multiple places at once, increasing your reach and giving you the best chance of finding that perfect candidate.
eTalent’s system goes one step further and ranks your list of applicants based on psychometrics and behavioural testing. All candidate information is stored in one place, making coming to informed decisions easy. The process is fully automated and can be viewed at the click of a button – saving you time and money.
5. Prepare for interviews
Be prepared and avoid conducting unstructured interviews that inevitably lead to forgotten important information. Knowing what questions you want to ask in advance and asking all candidates the same makes the process fair and comparisons between candidates easy. Open questions are great for getting candidates talking; yes or no answers limit your ability to judge a candidate’s confidence or character.
Finally, try to avoid relying on a single interviewer. A second opinion, particularly from someone that the new candidate will work closely with, is ideal, as they could spot something you don’t or may just see from a different perspective.
Get in touch today
If you want to simplify the recruitment process and use new technology to your advantage, contact eTalent today. We look forward to hearing from you.