Start the New Year Strong by Adopting These 4 Recruiting Practices

 

As the job market continues to become more competitive and qualified candidates gain greater leverage over where they want to take their talents, your company needs to better refine your recruitment processes to make them more efficient, productive, and pleasant for both your human resources (HR) department and candidates. What better time to evaluate your hiring processes than at the beginning of a new year?

Listed below are four strategies you can adopt to improve your recruiting process for the new year.

Make Your Job Descriptions Clearer

“Less-flashy, more accurate” is the way to go with your job descriptions these days. By clearly defining the responsibilities of the role, candidates will have a faster and easier time figuring out if their skills and experience match the role.

• Start with the job title. Avoid using unnecessary adjectives like “rock star” or “awesome,” as well as suspicious click bait titles like “awesome opportunity for fresh grads.”
• Next, aim for a clear job description that accurately outlines the role and its responsibilities. The more specific your description, the more likely it will resonate with the right person you’re looking for. Remember that every requirement under your job description limits the number of people who can apply for the job, so focus on your most important requirements.

Take Advantage of Your Latent Internal Network

You know people. Your HR department knows people. Your employees know people. Before engaging in a lengthy recruitment campaign, start a little closer to home first.

• If you have just hired fresh graduates, they may know skilled people they can refer to your company.
• They may also know passive candidates who are already employed but may be enticed to bite at the right offer from the right employer.

Make Small Things More Efficient

Each level of the recruitment process has several areas that can be optimized for efficiency.

• Start with standard processes. Organize these into checklists to make activities like interview preparation and screening calls more organized and productive.
• Use email templates. There’s a time and place for personalized messages, but a significant portion of your emails will do just fine with templates—referral requests, interview invites, and interview feedback are worth putting into templates.

Improve the Candidate Experience

Answer potential candidates’ questions by having a comprehensive careers page and FAQ section that covers everything they need to know about:

• Your company
• What you do
• Your corporate culture
• Who you’re looking for

Another area you can improve is the length of your application process. The faster your application processes, the more attractive your company becomes to job seekers.

Follow this blog for more workforce management guides and insights. If you’re having issues with your recruitment processes, let the staffing services experts of The Reserves Network help you! Contact us to learn more about our recruitment solutions.