Recruitment has steadily moved on since the days of the original workhorses where comfort barely big enough to swing a cat, has been replaced with well-defined spaces that we co-habit in paperless offices.

The gap between ease and effort is narrowing as the concept to compete becomes ever more challenging, across a number of disciplines with a culture built on effort and reward. Our businesses need to become enviable brands with reputations that we need to protect and over many years we’ve engineered a recruitment model based on simple steps.

The simple truth is that we recruit on demand and we all like to think we have done well to capture the right talent. Our expertise is impressive and there are good reasons why we can gloat as we all know how tough it can be. Despite this, we continue to increase capacity and our headlights are clearly open for business.

Our voyage of discovery has only just begun as new people join and depart, we have set our future focussing more and more on cultural fit than ability. Activity needs expanding at a steady pace to service the appetite of our employees in a widely competitive space that are continually looking for new and exciting opportunities.

There are Ten Recruitment Tips which will go a long way getting you there to meet these challenges:

 

1.  A good job briefing is the time when all your promises need to come together and it’s vital all the warts of the role are included; 
2. Planning is crucial so organise a structure (the hunt) of how you want the interview to flow and communicate your enthusiasm and eagerness well;
3. At interview it’s time to ask questions, watch and listen carefully to responses;
4. Ensure that you’ve done your homework on the candidate that is applying for your role and that they have done their homework on you;
5. Don’t be fooled by language like “I’m looking for a challenge” or “I don’t feel supported in my current role. One of the main reasons they are sitting in front of you and the reason they want to leave is dissatisfaction with their direct manager.
6. At the end of the interview summarise and evaluate the candidate against both the position description and the culture of your current organisation. Ask yourself the question whether you or your team could work with this person?
7. Trust your instincts as quite often your heart will tell you more about whether to offer than what your brain will;
8. Hire slowly to avoid moving through the process too quickly and dig deep to really understand the candidate’s real intention and motivations of applying for your role;
9. Second interviews are important, so always get the candidate back in for another look either with another colleague or to clarify responses from the first interview. I always avoid three interviews and it’s not necessary. This will only grind the process to a crawl and more often than not, the candidate will be snapped up by a competitor; and
10. We often reject more candidates than we hire so ensure you only notify the un-successful applicants once the successful one commits. A verbal offer is binding so ensure all of your ducks are lined up in a row before you jump in.

The potential costs to a business in getting the recruitment process wrong is significant. One clear sign is that candidates who are unsuited to a role often leave within the first year. Given a probationary period is often 6 months, it doesn’t leave too much room for error.  While the cost is certainly an issue, the underlying impact to the business is worse and includes:
 

• Recruitment and selection costs for the leaver and new employee;
• Cover while the role is vacant;
• Disruption to the team and business;
• Opportunity cost to the business;
• Induction of the new employee;
• Training and development of the new employee for the same role; and
• Costs for administration of the leaver.

If you take into consideration that on average a new employee can take up to a further three months on top of the probationary period to become operationally effective. To take but a few tips from the top ten recruitment tips is highly recommended.

Peter Forbes is an experienced manager with over 18 years in people management.  Members of Business SA can receive assistance in sourcing the right employees through recruitment services of Australian Business Recruitment Solutions. To find out more, visit www.talentoptions.com.au specialists in business support, executive and professional, www.extrastaff.com.au your industrial and in-direct health specialist and www.belmorenurses.com.au your direct health specialist.