Despite the importance of hiring great people, research shows just over half of new hires don’t meet their job specification within the first two years. That’s a huge problem for any business, but one that’s magnified in small businesses where getting it wrong can be an expensive and painful mistake.
Business consultant Peter Fuda says business leaders struggle to create change because they assume they’re objective but act subjectively. That’s true when it comes to recruitment where more decisions about hiring are made on a ‘gut feel’ than hard facts. Sometimes those decisions pay off but in many cases they do not.
To improve the quality of recruitment decisions and reduce the time and cost to hire, a more objective approach to hiring is required. This approach must retain the human aspect of finding great people but raise the bar in terms of identifying and qualifying top talent.
With that in mind, here are six ways to embrace a more objective approach to recruitment in your business.
- Get clear on what you actually need. One of the reasons businesses struggle to find quality talent is because they’re not clear on what they want from the outset. Before you even begin to search for your next hire agree with those involved in hiring what you need and which qualities are important. That alone can significantly reduce the time it takes to recruit because it avoids the likelihood of setting up interviews with people that aren’t right for your business.
- Cast your net wide. If you really do want to ‘hire the best of the best’ then you need to take actions to do just that. That means ensuring you’re recruiting from the largest source of talent possible. Most businesses don’t do this and rely on the database held by a specific recruitment agency or applications from a job-board that will only include a small number of relevant people who happen to be looking for a job. That might work out sometimes but if you’re serious about finding the best you need to ensure you’re fishing from the ocean, not the local stream. Remember too that the best candidates are probably happily doing a good job working for someone else at the moment so finding and engaging with them requires a special set of skills.
- Use tech to cut out the guess-work. While technology will never replace the human aspect of recruiting it can have a big impact on improving how the process starts. For example, when it comes to developing candidate shortlists it’s now possible to use sophisticated search tools and vast candidate pools filled with rich granular data to match roles with candidates, in seconds. These tools use smart algorithms to match a myriad of factors such as likely career paths and historical hiring data, which guarantees consistency in how you shortlist and who you select.
- Get real and talk straight. Even when businesses get to the stage of meeting a handful of promising candidates businesses still trip up. That’s because the conversations that take place between the interviewee and business are rarely authentic. For example, the interviewer will ‘over-sell’ the role being offered so it sounds more attractive, while the interviewee may in response ‘play-up’ some of their skills. It’s far better to be upfront and honest about what you’re offering by highlighting the good and bad aspects of the role. As well as preventing any surprises it also encourages an open dialogue based on honesty and respect – two factors critical for any long-term relationship.
- Understand there is a cost to recruitment and make an informed choice: Whether you use a job-board, social network, staff referral, an agency, or an online platform, there are costs associated. The true cost is a function of the time it takes (both productivity loss and management time), cash out of the door, quality of outcome (i.e. did you get someone awesome, or someone who will fail to live up to expectations). So, consider this – if you could get someone awesome more of the time and you could get them faster with less admin, as a business you’d be better off – even if it costs you a few dollars. If you’re considering a candidate represented by a recruitment agent be transparent about what you’re willing to pay and don’t feel obliged to pay over the odds.
- Be prepared to move fast: In today’s world, candidates can get found and placed really quickly. If you dilly dally as an employer, whether this is through a drawn out interview processes or indecisive hiring managers, it erodes the candidate experience and reduces the chance of you hiring good people. They won’t wait for you. You should be prepared for a recruitment process (excluding any notice periods) to take less than two weeks from initial candidate contact to decision / offer. We’ve seen as little as four days end-to-end this year, so expectations of a process taking 60 days need to shift for everyone involved.
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About the Author:
Ben Hutt is CEO of The Search Party. He has over 15 years’ experience in transforming business productivity, management consulting, and problem solving with top-tier firms including Macquarie Group and PwC Consulting.
Hutt is married with three children and in 2014 achieved a long-held goal to swim solo across the English Channel. He is an Ambassador for Opportunity International, a philanthropic organisation that provides microfinance to the developing world, and a support or The Hunger Project.
