Maybe you’re a hiring manager who’s just been given the green light to add new members to your team. As a small business, it’s up to you to find and recruit talent to fill those positions. And maybe you have no idea where to start.
Perhaps your company is looking to fill two or even thirty positions within the organization. And your leadership team is looking to move fast because time is of the essence. Sales are up and so are expectations. And maybe in your organization you’re the sole HR/Recruiting practitioner, who is now responsible for filling these roles in addition to your responsibilities as benefits expert, corporate trainer, and payroll extraordinaire.
• Know Your Job Description. Hopefully, your organization has invested in job descriptions for every position within your organization. Your job description will outline some of the qualifications and responsibilities in the role you are hiring for. Use this information along with a role description from the hiring manager, if provided. Depending on when the job description was created – I’m fairly certain – that the position’s roles and responsibilities have since expanded. Identify the job’s day to day responsibilities.
• Talk with Your Team. There is nothing worse than posting for a position based solely on the job description only to later learn that there are certain qualifications or skills that are imperative for the position you are filling. Talk with your hiring manager. Ask questions. Take notes. Better yet, talk to someone else who currently holds the same role.
• Research the Competition. Visit any major job board and search for similar positions to gain insights into how your competition or others within your industry are advertising and filling their open positions. Incorporate industry keywords and strategies into your own recruiting and sourcing tactics.
• Be Upfront with Everything. Give your candidate a realistic job preview before they actually apply for the position. If the position requires working in excess of fifty hours as well as regularly being on-call during evening and weekend hours, articulate this in the opening and pre-screen interview. Better to have a candidate opt out sooner than later. You don’t want to have to fill this position twice.
• Integrate Social Media. Use your network to promote the position. Something as simple as posting in LinkedIn Groups or updating your profile status can attract qualified candidates in ways that traditional media can’t. Offer your candidates a realistic job preview, possibly with a short video embedded into your career site. Give candidates insights into the type of culture and environment where they could be spending time.
• Follow Criteria. Depending on the unemployment rate for where the position is located as well as the industry, it is not uncommon to receive hundreds of interviews for a single position. Whether it’s one candidate or one hundred, adhere to your criteria. Manage your time by selecting a handful of candidates to conduct a short phone screen before scheduling a face-to-face interview.
Developing a solid process for recruiting and hiring can help make hiring easy. Trust your process. Your preparation and research for position or positions you are hiring for will give you the understanding to choose the best candidate.
Jessica Miller-Merrell, SPHR is a HR consultant, new media strategist, and author who writes at Blogging4Jobs. Jessica is the host of Job Search Secrets, an internet television show for job seekers.
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