The Recruitment Process. Done Right

The recruitment market is in full bloom and the battle for top talent is still going strong and whilst marketing your job adverts will showcase your great company culture and hopefully get that top talent through the door, it’s the way you engage candidates during the recruitment process that will seal the deal!

Surprisingly even though we are in a candidate driven market we are finding that some companies are missing out on strong talent by making their hiring process too lengthy and complex which is making candidates lose interest, going as far as even retracting their application!

Ask yourself and your team, is your hiring process too complicated and lengthy? Will it keep candidates engaged?  This is important to think about as you don’t want those strong candidates to drop out of the process purely down to the time it takes or because the process is overcomplicated!  What to do?  You need to ensure that you have an engaging and efficient hiring process in place.

Another off-putting factor for candidates is those “silly” interview questions, in a candidate driven market one wrong move can run the risk of a candidate losing interest!  Think about why you asking the questions, are they relevant to the role? For example, “Where do you see yourself in five years’ time?” – this is simply an unimaginative and, let’s be brutally honest, a rather boring question! In the interview you want to engage the candidate, try not to ask too many generic questions and perhaps focus more on personality-based questions such as “What drives you in your professional life? Tell me about a time when you went above and beyond in your job? How do you work best? Tell me about a stressful situation you dealt with and how you managed / handle it?”   Knowledge-based questions are also useful to ask as long as they are relevant, such as “What interested you about the role and company?” as these will determine what research the candidate has undertaken.

Good candidates will have put in a lot of time and effort into the preparation of their interview so to be in front of an interviewer who asks pointless questions won’t motivate and inspire them as they will likely feel deprived of the opportunity to showcase who they really are, leaving the interview feeling deflated and uninspired!

Lastly and most importantly, when you’re not giving someone the job, at least give them closure by sending them a rejection response, and within a timely manner.  A little communication goes a long way, approaching this delicate situation with tact and diplomacy in an honest and courteous manner will not only reflect on a company’s hiring culture, but also your character as a person.

Select.je specialises in permanent, temporary, contract and executive recruitment for office professionals, predominantly within the finance industry, as well as pre-employment screening, training, psychometric assessments, skills testing and training. For unbiased advice, without the hard sell call 01534 88 88 66, visit: select.je or email if you prefer hello@select.je