Employees are the bedrock of a business' success. They can make or break your company, and it can depend on whether they are the right fit for your business or not. The problem is, many small businesses make mistakes when they recruit new workers and doing so can be very expensive.
The cost to replace an employee can be anything between 50-150% of their annual salary – so hiring once is obviously preferable to rehiring. However, it has been found that 46% of employees fail in their new position within 18 months of being hired. Therefore, businesses can be wasting significant financial resources in recruiting repeatedly for the same position.
So how can you ensure you are hiring the right person for your business? Here are some tips to help you:
1. Write A Good Advert
Adverts don’t have to be too long as this might deter some ideal clients from your job opening. Instead, keep the advert as short as possible but include key skills, qualifications and experience you require.
To write a great advert, use the top four or five skills that are most essential to the job. Don’t list anything other than educational or experience related skills. Certainly, don’t include any personality traits you prefer in your advert as your candidates will only attempt to imitate this in interviews.
The rest of the advert should cover the excitement/challenges of the job, the salary and the benefits you offer workers. You can also include what it would be like to work for you.
Your advert should end with how they can contact you to apply for the position.
2. Use Social Media
Social media is one of the best ways to find candidates for your business. Those using social media in their recruitment processes tend to get more return on their investment. This is normally attributed to the fact that the candidates sourced from social media are passive candidates rather than active.
An active candidate is someone who is currently looking for a new job and planning to do something about it. They are often more enthusiastic when applying for roles. Passive candidates are those who are happy in their current role, but might apply if a position interests them. Those who apply due to social media recruitment are also often more technically adept.
3. Make Your Website Mobile Friendly
Another way to embrace digital growth is to make sure your job site is mobile friendly. In 2015, Pew Research found that 30% of American job seekers had used their smartphone to search for new positions. The activities undertaken include:
• Browsing job listings
• Filling out applications
• Creating a resume or cover letter
If you don’t have a mobile-friendly website, then you might lose candidates who could be perfect for your business.
4. Check Social Media Profiles
More often than not, hiring managers check their candidates’ social media profiles for their suitability. The social media profiles of your candidates can tell you a lot about their potential fit within your organization.
While much focus has been placed on the negatives aspects revealed of candidates, there is the opportunity to find positive aspects as well. A good candidate will have commented on industry news, have been constructive in their social media releases or perhaps spoken positively about their peers/bosses.
5. Hire For Soft Skills
Although you shouldn’t mention the soft skills you want in your adverts, they are vital. You should prioritize soft skills over technical abilities because these latter talents can be taught and acquired, while it is hard to change personal traits!
There are several ways to test the characteristics of your potential staff; though the best is face-to-face meetings, getting them to meet members of your current team and asking for references.
6. Move Quickly
The best candidates don’t stay on the market for long. In fact, they can likely be gone in weeks or even days if they have the skills and personality to match. So when you have a candidate apply that seems to fit all the criteria of your job – get them into your office for an interview as soon as possible.
If you don’t move fast, by the time you have invited them to your office, you might find that they’ve moved onto another job.
7. Improve Your Interview Technique
Leadership IQ has found that the failures exhibited by new employees can be the result of poor interview technique. The study found that 82% of managers surveyed, reported that interviewers were too focused on other business issues, limited in time or lacked confidence. This typically resulted in their attention not being focused on spotting red flags exhibited during the interview process.
The study also found that hiring managers are too focused on the technical competency of the potential hires. Instead, interviews should be targeting areas such as:
• Coachability
• Emotional Intelligence
• Temperament
• Motivation
8. Keep An Eye On Your Reviews
Nothing is going to damage your business’ reputation and deter potential candidates than a poor reputation on the Internet. Potential employees often seek insider information about what it is like to work for an employer, not trusting the company’s recruitment pitch in adverts. The information they can get from sites like Glassdoor can be the deciding factor for whether or not a candidate applies for your position.
Glassdoor has even found out that just under half of job seekers will read company reviews before speaking to a hiring manager. Apart from a positive reputation with current or former employees, you can also seem more attractive to key candidates by regularly contributing to review sites and publishing accurate information.
If you do have lots of negative reviews on websites, then you might need to change your organizational culture as this would help improve your business’ employee retention rate.
Conclusion
Recruiting your next employee could go wrong and cost your business. That is the undeniable truth based on current trends. However, by adjusting your recruiting processes and focusing more on the personality traits and ethics of your candidates rather than their technical abilities, you will have a greater chance of success.
Coupled with proper research of candidates on social media and with former employers – you can find the best candidates who will work well within your organization and help it grow.
Do you need to reorganize your recruitment techniques? Do you concentrate on the wrong tactics? Let us know in the comments or contact a member of the Ragain Financial Team; we’re always happy to help.
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