14. Advertise in places that your ideal candidates visit often
You should focus your recruiting process in ways and places fitting with your dream hires.
A recruitment ad placed by Google in the San Francisco area to attract math savvy candidates.
A cost efficient suggestion is to buy keywords that you think prospects may be searching for online. For example, Rapleaf - a US-based marketing data and software company, always looks for people interested in Hadoop – an open-source software framework supporting applications that run across multiple, distributed computers. That’s why they buy ads that will appear when people search for keywords related to Hadoop.
Online communities are another great place to target your recruiting process at a particular demographic. For instance, if you are being in need of a developer, try searching such terms as ‘developer forum’, you will find many places just for developers that you can publicize that you are hiring.
15. Consider past candidates
Former rejections can make great recruits now.
In the past, you may reject a good candidate for certain reason – maybe their wage requirements were too high, or they weren’t ideal for that position.
Whatever the reason was, if you think they would suit to this current position, it won’t hurt to get in touch with them and see if they are interested.
16. Make sure your employees like the candidate
For any new candidate, most of the staff will meet them, and they will be hired if everyone like them, or at least people they will work in team with like them. It is how you can get motivated people who enjoy spending time with the team. Indeed, keeping the whole team happy is seriously a mantra for recruitment and productivity. Make sure your employees are happy. If they are happy, they will make your company profitable.
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17. Host a contest
You can improve the hiring process by holding a contest to make your candidates fight for the post.
For example, when recruiting college talent that would represent their favorite brands on campus, Staci Hausch at UQ Marketing asked students to partake in a Youtube contest to demonstrate why they love the brand and why they should be the best candidate.
18. Don’t hire skilled people and motivate them
Simon Sinek in his book ‘Start with Why: How Great Leaders Inspire Everyone to Take Action’ stated, “Great companies don’t hire skilled people and motivate them, they hire already motivated people and inspire them. People are either motivated or they are not. Unless you give motivated people something to believe in, something bigger than their job to work toward, they will motivate themselves to find a new job and you’ll be stuck with whoever’s left.”
19. Find the best people first, train later
Always look for and be open to hiring the right people, not just when you have a vacancy to fill. Hiring only on occasion means you often get the best of a bad slot.
Also, hire based on values and abilities, and train for skills. While skills can be learned quite easily, it’s the key values and abilities of the candidate that ensure fit with the corporate culture and work performance.
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20. Target hiring ads to your top fans
The best people to recruit are those that have already shown a liking toward your brand. For example, Jayson Gaignard from TacketsCanada.com – a ticket reseller for music, sporting and cultural events, just serves up ads to those frequently ‘liked’ the site’s events on its Facebook page. That filtering option ensures that ads will just appear for true fans of TicketsCanada.com, thereby weeding out the unnecessary volume of applicants often plaguing the online talent scouting process.
21. Rewrite the dated job listing
Too many times, the recruiters pull out a set of job specs for a position that they have used for long. Take the time to understand what is required for the post, what is already outdated and not accurate.
22. State what you don’t want
A job ad has 2 particular goals: to attract ideal candidates and to deter those unsuitable.
The success of a recruitment ad is associated with how many ideal candidates you attract, not with the total number of applications you receive. If you draw a large number of candidates, you have written a poor ad.
Make sure not to obscure essential details; otherwise, you are more likely to attract unsuitable ones. Just include such statements as ‘only apply if…’. Remember that it costs your money whenever you receive an application from someone that lacks the background knowledge and experience you want.
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23. Contribute values to social networks
Add values and be part of the community, then you efforts will pay off. The talent will look for you because of the job advice and the like you provide in forums and other social networks.
24. Take phone calls instead of resumes
Don’t ask for written applications or resumes. This is one big cause of staff selection errors. You will be influenced by quality and professionalism of the written application or resume. Those things aren’t necessarily a reflection of your candidate’s capability and attitude because some may hire a person to write their resume as best or cook something nice to their resume. Considering resumes, your decision will be more related to what candidates have done for other companies in the past than to what they will do for you in the future. That’s why you are suggested to ask candidates to call you instead of sending a resume.
Employees may lie in the resume! If you ask candidates to call you, you can know more exactly about their capability, attitude and communication skills and save your interview time.
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25. Probe candidates and find out what they want
One of the biggest mistake hirers make when trying to place candidate prospects is that they don’t ask to see what the candidate wants. The recruiter just tells the candidate what they want and try to place him based on their false assumptions.
To get what your candidate wants, ask him “What is your dream job?” This is one of the key questions at interviews. Also, you can probe deeper by using psychometric questionnaires to get better understanding of the candidate’s motivations and preferences. Accompanied with a follow-up interview, this helps ensure a correct fit between the candidate and your organization.
Psychometric tests are applied by employers to assess candidate’s aptitude and personality.
26. Ask the candidate to reflect their past
Ask questions to understand a candidate’s thought process about when he has made shifts in his career. For example, “How did you go about moving from this job to that job? What was going through your mind?”
This line of questioning unveils a lot. If they aren’t comfortable discussing a previous job, perhaps because they were dismissed, you will see the flight/ fight response with awkward pauses. Ultimately, what you learn from the career reflection is the degree of proactive thinking that your candidate utilizes when it comes to career management.
When asking a question, make sure it addresses 3 distinct criteria:
• Be related to things that have already established in the discussion.
• Invoke certain degree of creativity on the interviewee’s part.
• Demand that the interviews be reflective so as to answer.
Examples of good reflective questions
• When you chose to leave the job you have after university, how was the job different from what they told you it would be during the interview process?
• After you accepted a project, were there more times that you felt under-utilized, or would you say it was maybe at times over-demanding?
What is your most creative tip?
Those may be great methods of recruitment and selection, but I am sure you have some tips of your own to share. Don’t hesitate to share creative recruiting tips that you are carrying this year and will carry into the new year.
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