Johnny Campbell walks through 10 concrete moves hiring managers can make to get better recruits without spending more money. Rewrite job postings to actually appeal to people, ask candidates what problems they'd solve instead of reading from a script, and make interviews easier to attend by offering video and after-hours slots.
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In this video, I'm going to Share with you 10 simple actions for Hiring Managers to Dramatically Improve Recruiting Results There are many actions that researchers, sourcers and recruiters can take to improve the impact of recruiting. But what about your role as a hiring manager? As organizations face more pressure to do more with less, we wanted to share with you our top 10 list of practical, easy to implement actions that will dramatically improve your recruiting results without a huge need for investment. Make the job posting more exciting Many recruiters pull job descriptions from internal systems that were written long ago for purposes other than marketing and opportunity and, to put it simply, a bit dull. As the hiring manager, you can help the recruiters in the talent acquisition team to rewrite them so that they sell the exciting aspects of the job and give applicants an idea of of how they'll be able to influence the future. Take the time to look at your competitors or organisations who hire similar talent and see how they advertise similar roles to ensure you're helping your recruiters to make yours much more compelling. Encourage referrals it's been true for a number of years that the highest quality hires come from employee referrals. Ask your team members for referrals and recommendations and reward them for doing so. Employees know you, your style and the culture and values of the organization, so their referrals are hugely valuable and cost effective. As a hiring manager, you don't have a lot of spare time, so this is also the most time efficient way to source, recruit and hire talent into your team. Number three Revisit previous high quality candidates. Oftentimes you can save tremendous resources by simply revisiting the stars that got away from not only from your team, but also from other teams in the business. Reach out to candidates who voluntarily dropped out of the process, turned down an offer, or who are finalists in a field where a super candidate ended up getting the job. Times change and it's not uncommon for candidates to regret decisions. Also, look at bringing back former star employees who've left your firm. 4. Ask references for referrals in addition to harnessing the power of employee referrals, you should ask the references of top candidates and new hires to provide you one or two additional names of top people who they know. 5. Keep an open mind. There are candidates who may not fit a particular job description, but be open to the recruitment team presenting you with potential candidates who may not look like they have it all on paper but have been considered for other reasons. As an example, they might have been selected because they are innovative thinkers. Avoid an overly rigid and antiquated competency profile that do little more than maintain the status quo. Make sure ample time is allocated in the interview process to both sell your organisation's ability to such candidates. Support your recruiter or talent acquisition manager to explore different skills during the screening and first round of interviews. 6 Ask about real problems in interviews. Ask the candidate to share with you some real examples of the types of problems they've solved in their current or past role. Explore their problem solving process, who do they approach, how do they figure out what the problem was and how long did it take to resolve and ask what was the final outcome? 7 Make it easy to attend interviews People who are currently working have difficulty scheduling and attending multiple interviews, especially if they're hard working, loyal and don't want their employer to know they're in a process. Think about it from their perspective and try to make it more feasible by making changes to accommodate their schedule. Consider dedicating at least one night or weekend day a month to allow individuals with scheduling issues to interview outside of work hours or using video or WhatsApp interviews that don't require travel. Second, consider accommodating your recruiter or talent acquisition manager by enabling a candidate to complete their interviews in a single day. 8 Spend time finding out the candidate's job acceptance criteria. Influencing top quality candidates is always going to be difficult, but you can actually make it much easier if you start out by asking candidates to identify the key factors that they will consider when evaluating a potential offer. In addition, have them outline deal breaking factors that would cause them to drop out of the process or not consider an offer. Tailor your interview and selling approach around these factors to maximise your ability to influence them to accept your future offer. Number nine Use mobile Effective communication is an important part of recruiting and hiring, so you want to identify and use the communication channels that are favoured by top candidates. The very best these days rely heavily on smart mobile devices. Texting is fast and very effective. Videos can be more powerful than words, so consider making and sharing a personalised video that actually helps a potential candidate build a connection with you, feel like you're someone they'd like to work for and also show them the exciting aspects of working with your team that would influence them to consider working for you. Develop your influencing skills. While some managers do a poor job selling the company to potential recruits, this doesn't have to be you. A great tip is to ask your existing team to identify the specific factors that make working with you and your organization so great and compile a list that recruiters and talent acquisition managers can use to better position the opportunity. Simple actions taken by well trained, smart hiring managers who think creatively can produce dramatic, almost immediate results. By investing in your skill development, you can add significant value to your organisation, achieve your team objectives, and even more importantly, have a huge impact on the careers and personal lives of the individuals whom you hire into your team.
