Recruiting Tips From Rachel Henton

Recruiting and onboarding new employees is one of the most important tasks for any business. It is not only a significant investment of time and resources but also a crucial step in building and maintaining a strong company culture and productive workforce. Finding the right candidates who align with the company’s values, mission, and culture is essential for the long-term success of the business. In this article, Rachel Henton, Director of Human Resources will share some practical tips to help you streamline your recruitment process and find the best talent for your organization. Whether you’re a small startup or a large corporation, these tips can help you attract, retain, and develop a high-performing team.

Best Practices

#1 Network, Network, Network!

To acquire top level talent, you always need to be passively recruiting. If you are active in your industry, you, or one of your employees, probably already know your next great team member addition! It’s better to be proactive than reactive, which is why you should never pass up an opportunity to network and represent your brand. Practice your elevator pitch. Be able to articulate why someone should be excited to work at your company. By passively recruiting, you can start your talent search with a list of viable candidates, every time a position opens up.

#2 Always Start with a Phone Screening

Once you’ve found what looks like an eligible candidate on paper, set up a phone screening to gauge if they’re a potential fit, before setting up an in-person interview. Phone screenings are great for getting a sense for a candidate’s personality and critical thinking skills and are also a fantastic way for the candidate to get to know you, the role and your organization. Remember, they are interviewing you as much as you are interviewing them.

Be transparent about the great points AND challenges of the role, the salary range and what you hope for the person in this position to accomplish in the first six months. Also make sure the candidate is informed on the details, including the location, the expected hours and whether remote work is available and how often (if at all). This will give the candidate a good foundation on which to decide to proceed to a second interview, should you offer one, and will build excitement for the opportunity and limit future surprises later in the process. You don’t want to get to the point of making an offer to a candidate only for them to decline due to the expected schedule or pay rate.

#3 Try to Weed Out Candidates From the Beginning

Uncertainty and low energy are big red flags! The ideal candidate should be excited by the position being offered and should present a basic knowledge of the skills/requirements you discuss during the phone screen.

The person on the front line of 1st interviews (whether it is HR or someone on your team) should be on the lookout for candidates who are not a fit, making an effort to talk them out of the position. If someone sounds uncertain about certain aspects of the job, or show low excitement for the opportunity, they’re likely not the right fit. Recruiters can effectively reduce wasted time and resources by trying to weed out fence riders when they encounter moments of push back or hesitation. Rather than passing them off to hiring managers for further interviews, or damaging your brand reputation by giving these candidates the cold shoulder, recruiters can serve everyone’s best interest by being honest about the fit for the role at the close of the call. Offering to keep them in mind for other, more appropriate, roles as they come up is a great way to close the conversation and will mitigate expectations and awkwardness down the line.

#4 Know the Numbers

Recruiting is a delicate balance of keeping some numbers high and some low. We have all been involved with endless searches with too many candidates – at some point it gets hard to keep track of everyone! Here are some handy numbers to keep your process manageable:

– Research the market costs. Know your salary range, the value of your benefits and other offerings beforehand so you can give base rate, total comp and bonus ranges if asked. The new pay transparency laws across some states make this a requirement AND it gives a straight answer for hiring managers to give in subsequent interviews.
– Phone screen at least three to five people. Sometimes the scope of your role changes as you see what candidates are currently out in the market.
– Interview at least three people for every position, within 48 hours of each other. This way, you can easily remember and compare all three.
– Never have more than three people interview a candidate at once. Two or less is better. Candidates are people too- they get intimidated and cross-talk can be distracting.
– Never have more than three interview or assessment steps between the application and the job offer. Candidates can burn out and lose excitement for the opportunity with endless interviews and meetings.
– Call the candidate within three business days, even if it is to let them know you need more time. Let those not moving forward know so they can move forward with their search and keep the good candidates hanging on with constant communication regarding next steps.

#5 Use Industry Specific Assessment Tools

When possible, use industry specific assessment tools to gauge a candidate’s competency. Remember, all assessment tools need to be validated using data from your current employee base before you can implement them so reach out to us if you would like help getting this process set up.

#6 Make a Decision

So many great candidates are lost due to indecision and the length of the interview process. It can be hard to talk your team, or yourself, out of just waiting a few more days to see who else may come down the pipeline.

If you find a great candidate early on in the process, pull the trigger. If you meet with many candidates, be selective who you move through to the next phase so that your options can be seen clearly by those involved.

No candidate will be a 100% perfect fit for the role, if they were there would be no room for learning, growth, and teamwork. Adding more and more interviews is not helpful and will cause exhaustion on both sides. Make your decision, bring the best candidate for the role into the team and make sure that your training is well thought out and thorough. The new employee’s excitement and willingness to learn can overcome a lot.

#6 Remember, Candidates Are Human

It can be easy, especially when the job market is flooded with available candidates, to lose sight of the fact that candidates are people too. They have families, their job hunt, and in some cases, their current job to balance.

While employers should expect a bit of flexibility and effort from the candidate, remember to meet them in the middle when scheduling interviews. Try to keep your interview process to a reasonable number of steps and the number of people interviewing to a minimum as to not overwhelm.

Remember, the candidate should be interviewing you as much as you are interviewing them. This new job will be a large part of this employee’s life – make sure they get all of their questions answered honestly. If you can’t offer remote work, or a shorter schedule on a certain day, BE HONEST. It is better they identify a fit before accepting an offer then being disappointed in their choice and moving on a few months later.

Approach candidates as the important commodity they are, the heart of what keeps every organization going, and you’re sure to reap the rewards.

Happy searching!

Innoworks HR
info@innoworksemployment.com