September always feels like a natural reset. Whether you are six months into your financial year or returning from summer holidays. This month has that ‘back to school’ feel about it. But instead of remembering how to pick up a pen and write, you’re trying to remember where you were in your recruitment campaigns and how your recruitment strategy is performing overall?
What to ask yourself before you restart your recruitment strategy
If that is striking a chord with you then don’t worry, we can help. As September has a natural restart feeling it is a great time to see how things have been going. We’d advise asking yourself:
- What job roles did I recruit for and fill?
- How many candidates did I receive?
- How many candidates were a good fit?
- Were there any ‘good eggs’?
These four simple questions are an easy way to highlight any pain points or challenges in your recruitment process. And, let’s face it, we know that recruitment has been difficult since the pandemic. Unfortunately, that trend seems here to stay so it is likely that there will be several pain points that you would love to overcome. Now you might be thinking that you don’t even have a recruitment strategy, and that’s ok. Depending on the size of your business, those four questions above can still help you benchmark where you are at and what challenges you still face.
How do I overcome my recruitment challenges?
Firstly, we can reassure you that you are not alone in your recruitment challenges. Secondly, to talk through all the current issues facing employers will take us more than one blog post! For now, we’ve simplified the recruitment challenges into two main issues:
- How do I find the best person for the job?
- What do I do if I can’t find the best person?
There are many nuances to those questions but by taking a broad overview, we can give you hints and tips that you can easily apply.
How to attract the best person for your role
For many sectors, the return to ‘normal’ didn’t actually result in a return to the office. The hybrid working or fully remote working model is here to stay. Additionally, a lot of us discovered that money wasn’t the only motivating factor when coming to the office.
What we mean is that attracting the best person is now so much more than a salary. It is the whole package of what you can offer. That is everything from the culture at your workplace (even if that is a remote workplace), to opportunities for skills development, to the benefits of working with you. And those benefits need to be more than a bonus, your birthday off or a gym pass. This is now the norm; it isn’t just a ‘nice to have’.
If you’re an employer and you’re not leading with an overview of your company culture, the benefits an employee can gain from working with you and what you believe in, you will be struggling to attract the right candidate. To attract the best person, you have to be thinking about the whole package, not just a job advert. Our recommendation is to combine a recruitment campaign with a process for a plan b if you can’t find the right hire.
How do we attract the right person? aka taking a fresh approach
We don’t like being anything less than positive, but it is a fact that sometimes it will be incredibly difficult to find the best candidate for your role. This is where practicality (with positivity) needs to come into practice. This is where a fresh approach to your recruitment strategy can help. If you have the time and resource, you can DIY the following:
- Sell yourself. We’re in a candidate-led market right now with no signs of that changing. The best person for your job wants to see that you are the best company for them. Add your values to your recruitment posts and website. Highlight your company culture across social media. Make sure candidates want to apply for your role over your competitors.
- Be flexible and adaptive. Review your job and applicants so far. Is it possible that one of the applicants has transferable skills and could be a potential fit?. This might be reviewing those with a degree in a different subject or changing an essential skill to a desirable one. You might be able to look at on the job development if a candidate meets the majority of the rest of your checklist.
- Out with the old in with the new. The days of being able to post a job and a salary have gone. We’ve all evolved and look for more now in our roles. Recognising and understanding this will make the recruitment process a lot easier.
However, working with a consultative recruitment agency such as ourselves can make the fresh approach a lot easier. We’re here to invest in you and understand your challenges and turn your pain points into possibilities. Resetting your recruitment is more than just finding applicants and CVs, Good Egg Recruitment works with you to help you adapt to these new challenges. We understand the candidate marketplace as well as the nuances of job roles, skills and can identify what will make the best employee for you. If you’re ready to reset recruitment give us a call on 07715308651 or complete our contact form and we’ll be in touch asap.