Make no bones about it: one of the best reasons to have a hiring strategy in 2024 is to minimize the risk of making a poor hire — both from the candidate’s perspective and yours. A poor hire or wrong fit costs an enterprise dollars and wastes time in the short term, and can damage your brand in the long term. Employee recruitment strategies need to include an integrated approach that includes not only attracting, selecting and recruiting the right candidate but also engaging, motivating and keeping them once they are on board.
Ensuring your recruiting strategies are sound applies to large multi-nationals with thousands of staff and a large hiring budget, and small businesses who are seeking part-time employees to help out over a crucial period like holiday periods. Your recruiting methods and strategies should be looking fill a crucial gap in your organisation, and should also address the following questions.
1) How does the hire(s) align to your strategic plan?
The right hire is all about getting the right person into the right job doing the right things at the right time. Unless you have a business strategy that is reviewed regularly, how do you know if the right ingredients for success are in place? If you don’t, you’re throwing jello at the wall and hoping it will stick. Irrespective of whether your hire is a temp to fill a short-term gap, or you’re looking for your next CEO, your employment recruitment strategies must be carefully planned and thought out to be successful.
2) How do you account for diversity?
Diversity has been a buzzword in job recruiting strategies because we know that a diverse workforce is better for business. Talent comes in all shapes, sizes, races, ages and genders and bringing diverse experiences, views and skills into an enterprise reaps benefits. But if your organisation is predominantly male, millennial and white, how do you ensure that your diversity isn’t just tokenism and is actually embraced by your current workforce? You will need to have policies, procedures and systems in place to ensure that your new recruits are welcome and thrive — not just survive. And you may need to be looking at a culture change project for your diversity program to be successful.
3) How’s your company culture?
Just about everyone knows that any job recruiting strategies are like dating. You are trying to impress the candidate so they’ll come and work for you, and vice versa. The interview (or interviews) are like first and second dates. You’re sizing each other up to see if your relationship could be a long term thing. Once you both commit, that’s when the fun starts — or not because 47% of candidates in the US say the reason they are looking for work is because of the company culture. Let’s face it: you can promise to have the best culture in the world, but if the reality is a very different experience, your new hire(s) will be leaving for greener — and nicer — pastures.
4) What have you done with your exit data?
Anyone who is looking for a job generally researches the company they apply to first. Google Glass Door, and there are thousands of companies that have been reviewed by their current and former employees. It’s probably no surprise to learn that the companies that have the highest churn — employees who are hired, but resign quickly — are the companies whose culture is not solid. You can go a long way toward fixing that by ensuring you have exit interviews for staff who leave — and act on the information they are telling you. If you’re culture is terrible, work on it. If you don’t pay enough, fix it. If job satisfaction isn’t there, go back to your hiring strategies and incentives, and align benefits to your strategic plan.
5) How effective are your interviewing techniques?
Behavioural interviewing is all the rage because of its supposed ability to predict future success of the candidate based on past success in previous roles or positions. But how effective is it? Most candidates are uncomfortable answering behavioural questions because it’s not like having a natural conversation. In fact, the more natural a conversation, the more likely the candidate will reveal more of their true nature, and isn’t that what you want? Behavioural questions can be anticipated and rehearsed. A conversation cannot, which is why it’s one of the most effective of hiring strategies for revealing a candidate’s personality.
6) What on-the-job benefits are your offering?
If you’re not looking at employee benefits in your recruitment strategy, you’re missing out on a valuable strategy to attract candidates — and keep them. Think about tangible benefits, like annual salary increases and Christmas bonuses tied to performance, or laptops for home use, to intangible benefits like doona days and sabbaticals and a time allowance for pursuing personal projects. Both kinds of benefits needs to be aligned to what your staff think are valuable — not what you think your employees want. And if you don’t know, ask them!
7) What’s your employer brand?
You decide you need to hire someone — or many people. HR does the job and person description. Your recruiting strategy may include a few incentives, like an end of year bonus and promises of training development. You place an ad, and the applications roll in. You hold interviews, you make an offer. You on-board your candidate. But there are grumblings. What you promised in the interview and on-boarding process hasn’t materialized. You haven’t delivered. Disgruntled staff leave for an employer who does deliver, and talks with others about their experience. This is your employer brand — and if you don’t address the problems, it’s a big risk to your business over the longer term.
Summing up
Your job recruiting strategies need thought. It’s not as simple as employing the first person who walks through the door. Even temp staff are generally interviewed prior to being offered a placement, because it makes good business sense. With a strategic recruiting strategy, you can minimize the risk of turnover, and ensure you hire quickly and efficiently, and spend less over the longer term.
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