What secrets are your recruiters keeping?

It’s never been more costly or time consuming to recruit good talent. Are you getting the most bang for your buck?

Recruiting can get expensive quickly and that price tag has only gotten higher with increased competition for the limited supply of great candidates (there are always bad one’s available). Whether it’s done internally or externally, the hiring process is going to require investing time, money, and effort from your recruiting and leadership teams. Organizations need every advantage if they’re going to get the best return on that investment. 

The secrets your recruiter knows will be the key to that success. They have the experience with both companies and job seekers to know what works well and what will be a waste of time. What insights can recruiters have?

• Writing compelling job postings. Drawing in great candidates starts with the description. This is often the first “experience” a passive candidate will have with your company. They’ll analyze their skills, desires, and career goals against what you’re telling them they’ll be doing and gaining while working at your company. If the job descriptions are misaligned with the actual work they’ll be doing, good candidates may not even apply or bail halfway through the interview process. Even worse, they could accept the position only to quickly quit feeling like they were lied to. This can have a devastatingly negative impact on your company and employer branding. Do your job descriptions accurately reflect the work a new hire will be doing? Will they attract the best candidates and get them excited about working with you and your team? A good recruiter knows what a solid job description needs to ensure it attracts great candidates.

• Ensuring competitive offers. Recruiters are dealing with candidates in real time. They actively see what’s happening with comp right now, not the 12+ month old data provided on many salary comparison tools/sites. While I always encourage hiring managers (not HR or the recruiters) to talk directly with candidates about comp, the recruiters can get you 95+% of the way there to ensure the negotiations go well. A good recruiter can be a trusted resource for both sides, establishing a fair and balanced deal for everyone. No one wants to be blindsided when working on comp. Candidates want to feel like they are valued, being paid fairly, and not being taken advantage of. This must include PTO, insurance options, holidays, work environments, and other benefits. The total package must also be built to attract the level of talent you need. Are you leveraging your recruiters expertise to make the most competitive offers? 

• Streamlining/creating quality hiring processes. Great hiring processes get great candidates increasingly excited about working for the company through the process. Does your hiring process provide an attractive “experience” that makes EVERY candidate want to work with the company? Remember the candidates you don’t hire now may be great prospects down the road OR influence others considering working for you. The best job seekers tend to gravitate toward companies with streamlined, efficient, and sensible processes. Cumbersome approaches bring you candidates who are being turned down by companies with intentionally great hiring practices. If you feel like you’re having to choose from the least bad option or aren’t hiring the quality you want, your process/candidate experience might be the culprit. Do you want to hire the top candidates or the leftovers? Empowered and supported recruiters can ensure a hiring process that helps both company and candidate make great decisions and keep the excitement level high on both sides. 

• Getting the most out of candidates. Are you inspiring candidates to do their best in an interview? Do they feel intimidated and left wondering if they are “good enough” or even worse, left thinking “how can anyone work for that asshole?” When too much emphasis is put on qualifying and not enough on candidate experience, they won’t often put their best foot forward. Are you asking your recruiter for the feedback they’re hearing from candidates and evolving accordingly? With very minor fixes, you can cultivate INCREDIBLY positive impacts on the quality of candidate’s experience and the hires you make. 

• Aligning leadership and the team. Sometimes a symptom and sometimes a cause of the problematic processes, unaligned leaders can break a hiring process. Everyone that interacts with an applicant must all understand the job description, value of both the position and the candidate, and be an evangelist for the company. Recruiters can tell when someone unintentionally is reflecting poorly on the company and driving away top talent. Have you asked your recruiter who your best ambassadors are?

• The impact of company culture. The detailed feedback from job seekers can tell you a lot about your company’s culture and what outsiders perceive about it. This is especially important in a candidate driven market like we have today. Why would you not want to engage with your recruiters to find the low hanging fruit that can have a major impact on your company culture, employee retention, and engagement to make your company as attractive as possible to the best candidates considering new opportunities?