The hiring process is crucial for a business to secure the right candidate for the job but, how do you manage the influx of applicants? There are so many more available due to forced lay-offs, furloughs, and business closures. And, once you’ve shortlisted some applicants, how do you hire when home offices, isolation, and social distancing are the new normal?
SmartHire provides software to help – applicant screening, job-fit assessments, skills testing, talent management, and HR Onboarding – all tools to make the hiring process more successful while still protecting applicants and staff.
If your company wants to improve its hiring process, consider these tips:
A Job POSTING Differs from a Job DESCRIPTION.
Word online Job postings to attract a candidate to explore your company. Yes, you need to include what you seek but focus only on the
key education/skills/experience. Including a long list of qualifications and skills required (demands-abilities) does more harm than good. The list turns away the best-fit candidates. A 2015
study discovered that the needs-supplies approach, which emphasizes what the business can do for the applicant, attracts more qualified candidates than the demands-abilities approach. Construct job postings that emphasize what your business offers potential employees – room to grow in the company, team-focused projects, etc. You can provide interested applicants with more specific details later.
Use a Common Position Title
Okay, your internal position title is ‘Director of People’ but would that be the first thing a career-seeker would think to enter into a search bar? Change the role to an HR Director – you’ll garner more interest. It doesn’t matter what the posting title is, it matters if your position gets notice and you find the right person!
Be Mobile-Friendly and Social
For a business that wants to find qualified applicants and maintain current employees, this means ensuring a mobile-friendly career site.
Almost a third of American adults have searched postings, created their resume or cover letter, and applied for positions through their smartphones/tablets. Businesses that are active on social media attract people – because they can check them out. Pay attention to your company’s reviews on sites like Glassdoor and Indeed – a poor reputation on those sites can shut the door on an interview swiftly.
Streamline Application Process
We know there are a lot of people out of work right now. If your ‘usual’ application process involved email applications, your inbox is likely full. Consider a job board on your website that connects to an Applicant Tracking System (ATS). An ATS than connects with pre-screening questions, pre-hire assessments, and skills testing can assist in the short-listing of candidates.
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Don’t Disregard Soft Skills.
A business that focuses primarily on experience qualifications may weed out the right applicant if it doesn’t consider soft skills. Soft skills, including interpersonal and communication skills, are important traits to look for in an applicant. An applicant who possesses strong soft skills with a minor deficiency in the required experience may be a better hire than an applicant with deficient soft skills and much experience. If you think about the last successful person in your vacancy, what stood out? What soft skills were used to apply their qualifications? There are highly qualified individuals with soft skill deficiencies.
Rethink the interview.
With the ‘new’ normal, the face-to-face interview will be a challenge to coordinate. Utilize the abundance of on-line platforms to complete a video interview (or two) with a candidate. You can still get a sense of their body language, facial expressions, attention to detail (like what’s behind them), etc. Support your ‘gut’ instinct with
tools/solutions that reveal what’s below the surface.
Interviews are Two-Way Communication
Prevent new hire failures by improving the interview. We get feedback from candidates that they feel interrogated, especially when the interviewer is in a rush or targets questions only on competence for the position. To find the right applicant, the interviewer should consider other factors – such as work ethic, discipline, motivation,
emotional intelligence, and temperament. Let applicants ask questions about the position. Give the applicant a chance to see if it’s a good fit. Give the interviewer a chance to determine what is most important to the applicant. Be honest; give candidates a realistic picture of job responsibilities, the supervisor, and the work environment. Don’t forget it is a balance between ‘what’s in it for you’ and their ‘what’s in it for me’ – if you don’t answer the latter, it is difficult for them to consider switching employers.
Don’t Delay
A big mistake is dragging out the process. In a candidate market, top quality prospects will actively look and, likely, interview. If you snooze, you’ll likely lose. Be flexible in your process to ensure you don’t miss out on hiring your next great employee.
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