The most common thing to hear in organisations is that hiring for talent is a struggle. It isn’t easy to find the “right people for the bus” (Jim Collins, Good to Great), because everyone is hunting for them. A specially for the Tech company’s who are looking for Software Developers. So what can you do to get those purple squirrels and improve your hiring?
First, let’s start by looking at the Recruitment Process in your organisation. What is the normal way of the process of candidates? How many candidates who have their first interviews will also end up as a new hire? Most often the contact person of a candidate is the Corporate Recruiter from a company. So it’s very important to know what the different steps are in the candidate process, how to keep your candidate attached and interested in your company. Clarity and good communication are very important for the candidate experience. Are there any hickups in the process? Yes or maybe, well let’s find out and deal with that first.
Second, ask questions like: why can’t your organisation attract that talent? Do people know about your company? How well are your competitors doing and why? The branding of your company is important because it will help you to attract candidates. That's why you want candidates to have a feeling by the name of the company. You want them to identify them with your company and get that feeling that they “want to want to” work at your company. It’s stronger to have a good employer branding strategy than a general marketing strategy. Because an employer branding strategy will focus more on the work life at a company and your employees will do the work for you. For example, they will show the social events, office space and extra perks on social media (Facebook, Twitter). No stock images at all, just real people, the future colleagues of the candidates.
Third, let’s look at how and where you will find candidates. Not all candidates are easy to find and it really depends on the type of job role. To start with your search it’s important to ask yourself the question: who is the person behind the job role? What are the interests, professionally and personally, of this person? Where will this person look for his or her information? Where will he/she interact with peers? With these questions and some more, you will create a persona of your future new colleague. This will make your hunting for the right person much easier.
So I gave you three ways to improve your hiring success at your company. In my next blog, I will focus more on the persona part and how you create one.
Thank you for reading and happy hunting!