5 Tips For Recruiting The Best Employees
In theory, building a team sounds pretty simple: you post a few openings on job boards, skim through applications and facilitate interviews. How difficult could it be? Well, as many entrepreneurs can attest, the hiring process is often more complicated and nuanced than that.
Amassing the right team can help you see your company’s vision to fruition. But amassing the wrong team can lead to disaster. Scott Mowrey, Managing Partner of VSAG, an international restaurant and hospitality consulting and management group, has seen numerous restaurateurs crash and burn after poor hiring decisions.
According to him, too often business owners are only concerned with hiring to fulfil their short-term goals. They’re not thinking about long-term growth plans. Which means that, as their companies grow and evolve, they have to repeat the hiring process over and over again, draining time and money they don’t have.
VSAG helps owners find the right blend of chefs, general managers and directors, to help a business flourish throughout its lifespan. After speaking to Mowrey, these were his top five tips for recruiting the best talent in the workplace.
1. Make A Plan
New business owners are eager to surround themselves with talent, but more often than not they get ahead of themselves in the hiring process. Rather than making hiring decisions based on industry trends or competitive staffing models, it’s crucial to take the time to plan out your business’s long-term strategy and budget allocations.
For example, with everyone talking about influencer marketing, new business owners may feel that they need to hire a dedicated influencer strategist right off the bat.
But, in reality, it may take a few months before you have the right budget in place to effectively maintain a strong influencer network. If that’s the case, your influencer strategist won’t know where or how to fit in at your company. Making a long-term roadmap will help you create plans and timelines to keep your hiring goals on track.
2. Be Specific
Before you even open a listing for a new job on talent networks like LinkedIn or AngelList, take a second look at your description. Does your opening for a marketing manager read like all of the other ads for the position? If so, you should expect to receive a slew of generic applications.
When job seekers see generic openings, more often than not they don’t tailor their resumes or previous work examples to fit the company’s needs. This means you end up with 100 applications that all look the same. The more targeted and comprehensive your description is, the better chance you have to attract relevant talent.
Additionally, writing out every aspect of the position, as well as the personality traits you are seeking in candidates, will give you a better ideaof the person you are seeking. It’s easy to be vague and just go through the motions when posting a job ad, but this usually leads to hiring headaches down the road.
3. Implement Company Referral Programs
Referrals often come from existing connections and acquaintances, which means that your own employees have already started the vetting process for you. When an employee puts forth a referral, they’re indicating that they believe this person has the talent and personality to fit in with the company culture.
Furthermore, because referred candidates are being pulled in from their own contacts, they come to the hiring table with a clearer picture of company culture and goals. Referrals eliminate a lot of the guesswork on the parts of both employer and potential employee.
Referred candidates are confident that their friend or previous colleague wouldn’t put them up for a job at a company with low morale or unclear goals. In fact, 65% of referred employees are satisfied with their jobs and are confident in their ability to fulfill the position’s requirements.
4. Prioritize Intelligence Over Experience
Experience is heralded as the most important trait when it comes to amassing a strong team. And for many roles, years of experience are a necessity. Roles that are technically advanced and require comprehensive understanding of systems need experience to build up skillsets.
For example, a marketing manager with an interest in product development but no real concrete experience probably won’t work out. However, sometimes hiring someone with too much experience can backfire.
Let’s say you’re interviewing a candidate with 10 years of design experience at a large agency to lead the design efforts at your burgeoning startup. Because the candidate has been in one specific environment for so long, they may believe that their approach is the only approach.
With fluid budgets, aggressive timelines and minimal resources, new teams require agility. Recruits need to be able to take a step back from their own habits and processes and rethink their approaches in the context of your company’s business model.
5. Set Onboarding Goals
The hiring process doesn’t end once the i’s have been dotted and the t’s crossed on a contract. Too often, startup founders forget that even highly qualified recruits need some guidance and encouragement at the beginning. When new hires are left to flounder, that’s when the trouble starts.
In fact, one-third of new hires quit their jobs after just six months. Founders can increase their company’s retention rates by establishing strong onboarding procedures from the get-go, including regular employee check-ins.
It’s easy to lose sight of the fact that you employ individuals with personal career goals, but making the extra effort to nurture their development will help you build a stronger, longer-lasting team.
Great teams don’t just appear out of thin air; they’re the result of careful planning, vetting and supporting. Rushing the hiring process or focusing too much energy on the wrong areas is not only financially costly; it will also weaken the morale of your growing team.
Originally posted by Deep Patel.
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