How To Recruit In 2023

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Key Takeaways:

• According to Finances Online, the top priority of recruitment professionals in 2021 was improving the quality of hire (52%)

• To reduce bias and inconsistency in your recruiting strategy, consider training your employees on how best to interview candidates.

• The more time you take to prepare and understand your hiring objectives, the easier the process will be, and the better your end result, too.

What Is Recruiting?

The word recruitment is often used in business, and most of us understand it broadly as the effort we make to attract new talent. Officially, recruitment is defined as the process of identifying, attracting, interviewing, choosing, hiring, and onboarding a new employee. This is one of the most important parts of your HR processes.

Recruiting employees can be complicated. You must hire the right individual for each role and ensure they have the skillset and personality to blend in well with your existing team. Many times, especially with higher-level employees, you may even be competing with competitors to attract them to your business.

A heavy focus is needed on recruiting to ensure you are not only attracting the right talent but hiring the right people. According to Finances Online, the top priority of recruitment professionals in 2021 was improving the quality of hire (52%). A bad hire can hurt not only an entire team but your business and your bottom line.

In today’s recruiting landscape, the idea of recruiting a new candidate can be overwhelming. Oftentimes teams must sort through hundreds of digital applications and resumes. Because this process is so time-consuming, it’s estimated that only about a third of U.S. companies report that they actively monitor whether their practices lead to hiring good employees.

Strategies for Effective Recruiting

Depending on the size of your business, the amount of time you can dedicate to recruitment may vary drastically. Unfortunately, recruiting takes more than just placing a job posting on a job board or LinkedIn. The more time you take to prepare and understand your hiring objectives, the easier the process will be, and the better your end result, too.

Here are some strategies to use for effective recruiting in your business.

• Identify your needs. Take a step back and identify your overall business needs. Where will this person help your business grow, and what specific skills would you like to see added to your team? Be specific and craft a comprehensive job description from this, including salary and whether the position is permanent or contract.

• Promote. You can write a great job description, but it may not matter if nobody sees it. Post your job opening on your company’s career page, social media channels, and job boards. Most importantly, promote your job opening internally. Some of your best candidates may come from existing employees or recommendations.

• Keep a standard. All interviews should be held to the same standard. Work with your team to develop a strategy that fairly evaluates all applicants. This will help to eliminate bias and keep things consistent, creating a better experience for both the interviewer and interviewee.

• Only interview top candidates. Don’t invite every candidate in for an interview. Have a process that eliminates those without the necessary skillset or personality for your team, and conduct interviews with your top applicants. This way, your team doesn’t get interview fatigue, and you reserve your attention for the candidates you’re serious about.

• Don’t take too long. If you’re interviewing a candidate, there’s a high likelihood that they are interviewing at other companies, too. Waiting too long between interviews can be frustrating to your potential candidates and they may be more inclined to take a different job offer.

• Prepare an appealing offer. There’s nothing worse than identifying a great candidate and then losing out on them due to an offer. Be sure you communicate your salary range upfront and cater to market expectations that are fair for the role. Be sure your candidate is clear on expectations and responsibilities during the interview stage.

For larger companies or businesses with a larger budget, you may choose to find an employment agency that helps make the recruitment process easier. This can reduce stress on your team and make your business more efficient in the long run. This can help reduce the hiring time and maintain consistency throughout your hiring process.

How to Avoid Bad Recruiting

So, how do we find good candidates? There is a multitude of reasons for bad hires, but a few common ones you can address and potentially avoid as you move forward with recruitment. Consider these common reasons for bad hires before introducing a bad hire into a team setting.

• Bias. Interviewers will often come with their own inherent biases. When interviewing a candidate that fits an ideal image or shares similar interests, an interviewer may hire them without understanding their qualifications. Be sure your interviewers are prepared with specific questions to ask so their bias doesn’t cloud their judgment.

• Poor job description. The first and arguably most important part of the recruitment process is developing a comprehensive job description. If your job description is too vague or the needs are not properly defined, it will be increasingly difficult to find a candidate who will perform well.

• Candidate misrepresentation. This happens when a candidate exaggerates their skills on their resume or during an interview. A great way to prevent this is to ask them to complete a short task that can prove their skillset in a work environment.

• Bad interview. Not everyone is skilled at interviewing and oftentimes you’ll find your employees haven’t ever been on the interviewing side before. Be sure to train your employees on how to best interview a candidate. Coordinate with your team to ensure everyone understands what questions they should ask and define an interview goal.

One of the best things you can do to avoid a bad hire is to train your employees in consistent hiring methods. Encourage teams to work together to develop an interview plan in which each interviewer asks questions that lead towards different goals such as culture fit, skills and qualifications, and more.

How to Recruit FAQ

1. What is the best way to recruit someone?

   The best way to recruit someone is to create a job posting that includes detailed needs for the job opening. This includes job responsibilities, skillsets, qualifications, experience, and education. Then, you’ll want to advertise your job opening internally and externally through advertising, job boards, referrals, and more.

   Be sure to coordinate an effective interviewing strategy for your candidates to ensure the best experience possible. If you have the means, consider hiring a recruitment agency that can help make your recruitment efforts more efficient and consistent.

2. What is the most effective method of recruitment?

   There are a wide variety of ways to recruit new candidates to your talent pool, but one of the most effective strategies is to promote your job listing internally. By opening up the job listing to your existing team, you can attract existing employees or rely on employee referrals, which can help speed up the hiring process.

   By attracting internal employees, you’ll already have a good idea of how your candidate behaves in your organization and how they work with a team. By using employee referrals, you’ll have the word of an employee on that candidate’s work ethic and skill set.

3. What are three different types of recruitment?

   Three different types of recruitment include inbound recruiting, outbound recruiting, and internal recruiting. Inbound recruiting is when you receive applications and resumes responding to a job posting. Outbound recruiting is when the company identifies a potential candidate and reaches out to them directly.

   Internal recruiting can refer to both recruitment of existing employees for a new role or employee referrals.

References

1. Harvard Business Review – Your Approach to Hiring Is All Wrong

Author

Caitlin Mazur

Caitlin Mazur is a freelance writer at Zippia where she has written 140+ articles that have reached over 1 mil viewers as of June 2023. Caitlin is passionate about helping Zippia’s readers land the jobs of their dreams by offering content that discusses job-seeking advice based on experience and extensive research.