9 Recruiting Tips To Find The Best Candidates

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There’s no doubt that recruiting is not easy. Put out a job opening and you immediately get inquiries from all over the world.

To find the best candidates you need to be targeted with your approach. You need to effectively filter through your applicants. What’s more, you need to attract the best-fitting talent.

Key Takeaways:

• Effective recruiting requires a strategy that considers your needs, time requirements, and resources.

• Think like a marketer but maintain the human element during the recruitment process.

• Tips for effective recruiting include using employee referrals, simplifying the application process, and embracing diversity.

• Use technology to help you streamline your process, however do not always get caught up in the latest trend.

How To Find A High Quality Candidate

Finding a high-quality candidate requires a robust strategy that is both focused and flexible.

To find a high-quality candidate you must first plan a strategy. To do this:

1. Consider your needs. Before you begin to dive into recruiting candidates, you should know what the ideal candidate looks like to you. This is where writing the job description is very helpful. List the roles and responsibilities you seek to fill. Try to separate what you need from what you would like to keep your expectations realistic.

2. Know your time requirements. How much time you have to fill a position will determine the implementation of your recruitment strategy. Give yourself as much time as possible to find a high-quality candidate.

3. Know your resources. You do not have to work on the recruitment process alone. There are plenty of resources out there, including online job boards and professional social media pages, that allow you to connect with candidates. Also, consider your employees and how they might be able to help as well.

4. Have the right mindset. To stay focused, it is important to remember two key points during the recruitment process:

   • Think like a marketer. Remember, you are trying to sell your open position. You don’t just anybody, you want somebody who will make your company stronger. By thinking like a marketer, you approach the recruitment process as more than just a mere spot to fill. You are thinking about how your candidates need to consider you above all other opportunities.

   • Maintain the human element. Although you are thinking like a marketer, and although you are using all kinds of data and technology to streamline your recruitment process, it is important to never forget the human element. You are dealing with people, therefore use your empathy to communicate effectively.

     The best candidates are the ones who will seek out job opportunities where they feel valued, so show them that respect in the very beginning.

9 Tips for Recruiters To Find The Best Candidate

1. Use employee referrals. Most companies use their employees as a recruiting resource. This makes sense. Networking is one of the most important ways job candidates find positions. Your employees provide a pool of candidates simply by having professional connections.

   Trust your employees to suggest candidates that would be a good fit. To incentivize employee referrals, create an employment referral program that rewards employees who help find placements for positions. This can be in the form of financial bonuses, gifts, extra days off, or anything else that provides fair and attractive compensation.

2. Be an attractive place to work. Think about what your ideal candidate wants in the workplace. Brand your company to fit that image. Some ways to make your company an attractive place to work include providing flexibility, competitive benefits, competitive salaries, and embracing a healthy work-life balance.

   You want to show to your candidates that you value their person-hood and consider the relationship between a business and its employees an open dialogue.

3. Stay modern with your recruiting. Don’t always get caught up in the latest trend, however, also do not shy away from innovating your recruiting methods. It can be easy to get comfortable with old habits.

   Look for ways to use technology to make your recruiting process more fulfilling. There are many tools out there that allow you to manage the inflow of candidates, as well as allow you to avoid old traps such as unconscious biases.

4. Write clear, concise job descriptions. Make sure you do your best to help candidates fully understand what you are looking for. You want to avoid any miscommunication or false assumptions. The candidates who read the job description should know very quickly what is expected.

   Unfortunately, this doesn’t help with people who do not read the job descriptions, but for everyone else, this is a great way to target your talent.

5. Simplify the application process. Along with a well-written job description, you want to provide your candidates with an easy application process. You do not want to lose someone just because they were unable or unwilling to jump through a messy set of application options.

   Make your application process mobile friendly and use high-quality software that can automatically import resume information. You obviously want to get the information you need, however, do not overwhelm your candidates with too many or contradictory steps.

6. Embrace diversity. Diversity in personality and backgrounds provides an important competitive advantage. If your company is filled with like-minded individuals from the same background, you put yourself at risk of ignoring innovation and improvements. Seeking out diverse candidates helps you pull in new ideas and perspectives that can be used to grow the company.

   Diversity is also important from a humanistic standpoint. You must be aware of certain biases against people of different backgrounds, particularly in regard to race and gender. These biases can prevent you from obtaining top-tier talent. Diversity and inclusion allow you to pick the best candidates from across the spectrum.

7. Quantity over quality. To be targeted in your recruitment, you must understand that you are looking to pull in quality candidates. This means in all your techniques, you should be looking at ways to attract the best-qualified people.

   Do not worry so much about having your openings seen by as many people as possible. In this digital age, all that will do is give you a headache because now you’ll have to sort through a large list of unqualified people and bots.

8. Have realistic timelines. For yourself and the candidates, you want to plan out how much time you have. Obviously, with more time comes more flexibility. Unfortunately, time is a luxury that many companies cannot afford.

   That being said, do not rush into filling a position, this can lead to hiring mistakes that will cost you in the long run. Communicate your expectations to candidates so that everyone is mindful of how much time they are dealing with.

9. Use a rubric. During your recruitment process, organize your needs into a rubric and then score candidates based on whether or not they meet your needs. A rubric helps keep track of your candidates and allows you to view them from a more objective standpoint. You can measure candidates against one another with out being affected so much by your gut reactions.

   That being said, do not discount your intuition. You cannot fully tell a candidate by the marks they score on your rubric. Your rubric is a tool that helps point you in the right direction.

Author

Conor McMahon

Conor McMahon is a writer for Zippia, with previous experience in the nonprofit, customer service, and technical support industries. He has a degree in Music Industry from Northeastern University and in his free time he plays guitar with his friends. Conor enjoys creative writing between his work doing professional content creation and technical documentation.