Attract Top Talent by Changing Your Recruitment Process

Attracting top talent is no walk in the park.

According to Deloitte’s 2019 Global Human Capital Trends report, researchers found that “finding top talent is among recruiters’ biggest challenges.”

You might blame the “war on talent” for your inability to recruit the best candidates. But the single most important difference you can make to improve the quality of your hire is to revamp your recruitment process.

A well-defined hiring process can help you attract and retain top talent. But what happens if you recruit new employees without a well-defined process?

• You’re more likely to hire the wrong people for the role
• You’ll waste time, money, and a ton of resources trying to find the right candidate
• The interview process to find the right hire will be lengthy and frustrating
• You’ll have a higher turnover rate if the onboarding process is not top-notch

All these problems can be avoided by following a defined recruitment process and the best practices for hiring, recruiting, and onboarding.

This post will take a comprehensive look at how organizations can revamp their hiring processes to attract and recruit top talent. Let’s dive in!

Ways to Attract Top Talent

They say money makes the world go round, but to job seekers, financial incentives aren’t the only things that make a job attractive.

From fostering a diverse and inclusive culture to providing tailored employee health solutions, there are plenty of non-financial ways to attract top talent. Here are the various ways organizations can attract and retain top talent.

1. Present a Positive Work Culture

Job seekers are looking for companies with a strong work culture.

According to Gallup, culture wins by attracting the top 20% of the candidates. Positive company culture can offer employers an advantage when attracting top candidates.

However, organizations often struggle to identify which aspects of a company culture matter most to employees. The right culture for the top talent could include:

• Providing opportunities for remote working
• Fostering an inclusive and diverse environment
• Providing a certain level of autonomy to employees (no micromanagement)
• Promoting team bonding—weekly team lunch, team building activities, etc.

Presenting a positive team culture in the modern working environment can give your company an edge over the competition in many ways.

For instance, in the wake of COVID-19, many organizations have adopted a hybrid working model that allows employees to work partly from home.

A study has revealed that 64% of employees prefer working from home as they’re more productive and less stressed. Therefore, having a remote working policy is essential if you want to attract and retain top talent.

2. Offer More Health and Wellness Resources

A stronger health and wellness offering can go a long way in attracting employees to your organization. If you show your employees that you appreciate them and provide them with tailored health and wellness resources, you’ll likely see an increase in retention rates.

Job seekers value organizations that care about their well-being.

In a recent survey conducted by Software Advice, 61% of job seekers said they value companies that offer their employees wellness programs.

If over 60% of job seekers say that employee health and wellness programs are important to them, this means they’re actively looking for companies that offer these programs.

Corporate wellness programs are an excellent way for companies to encourage healthy habits in the workplace. Employees who have more options to be healthier at work may feel happier and more productive.

Corporate wellness programs aim to help employees stay healthy, facilitating a better work environment for everyone.

Dr. Shahan Chowdhury of the Executive Health Doc has developed a concierge executive health care solution that goes beyond the typical medical insurance or the perks of an annual physical. Focused on prevention rather than cure, this healthcare program offers long-term strategies, tools, and advice to improve overall employee health.

3. Create a Positive Company Reputation

To attract top talent, it’s crucial that companies create a reputation and a brand name candidates will want to be associated with. Companies well known for their innovation and working practices are able to attract the strongest candidates in the market.

When designing your recruitment procedures, invest time and effort in creating a process that will reflect this reputation. Everything from recruiting to training and onboarding should reflect your company positively.

Pro Tip: Invest in marketing activities that will show potential candidates how terrific your company is, then back it up with a well-defined recruitment process.

4. Focus More on DEI

DEI stands for diversity, equity, and inclusivity.

The changing corporate world and the emerging trends in the workplace have led to candidates considering organizations with a significant emphasis on DEI.

Hence, recruiters should make DEI a cornerstone of their organizations. Their endeavors should encourage a diverse workplace that promotes equality.

Genuine inclusivity and diversity initiatives can present your company as authentic and authoritative, thereby giving you an edge over the competition. Here are some ways to ensure your DEI initiates are in order.

• Have a clear anti-discrimination policy which should be included in your employee manual
• Hold regular meetings to inform your employees about the benefits of DEI
• Discuss with your employees the ways to increase DEI within your organization

When potential candidates see your company’s honest approach toward DEI, they likely will want to become a part of your team.

5. Create Opportunities for Growth

The prospect of career growth is often fundamental in a candidate’s decision to work with any given company. Research shows that 94% of employees will stick long-term with a company that offers potential for growth.

Providing training and development opportunities that focus on increasing the employees’ skills is a great way to attract those candidates thinking about long-time career development.

Pro Tip: Establish a tailored professional development program and ensure these opportunities are included in the job adverts.

Attract Top Talent with a Well-Designed Hiring Process

When you have a systematic process in place for recruiting and onboarding, you reduce the chances of settling with the wrong candidates.

Nevertheless, a good recruitment process can minimize the time spent in searching, interviewing, hiring, and onboarding. It can streamline these processes, making your search for top talent more efficient.

But what does a comprehensive recruitment process look like? Before we delve into the nitty-gritty, let’s get to the basics first.

What Is a Hiring Process?

This is the overall process of identifying, attracting, sourcing, screening, shortlisting, interviewing, and selecting candidates for jobs within an organization.

Hiring is a complex process that takes time. Research by Glassdoor shows that, on average, the hiring process takes 23.8 days in the US. The length of the process can vary depending on many factors, including location, industry, and role.

Since the process requires strategic and pragmatic thinking, there are steps to be followed. To attract top talent, your hiring process should include the following steps.

Step 1: Identifying the Need for a New Hire

The first step in the recruitment process is identifying a need within the organization. This need may arise for many reasons, including:

• An employee leaving the company
• Need for more headcount as your company expands
• To reduce workload for the existing employees
• To fill a newly created role

Understand what kind of individual you need for this role and the required skill set. For example, if you’re recruiting to replace someone, consider the skills the previous holder possessed and their skill gaps. Then recruit a candidate with a combination of all those skills and experience to take on the role.

Step 2: Identifying the Required Qualifications and Skills

After you’ve identified the position that needs to be filled, your recruiting team needs to develop a job description for the ideal candidate.

This should include the education level, skills, and experience. In addition to the must-haves, the job description should also identify the soft skills required for the role—for example, communication skills, negotiation skills, or even the ability to work under pressure.

Step 3: Create a Job Posting

Acquiring the right talent requires posting the job ad on relevant job boards.

You’ll also want to post the job vacancy on the company’s website. If you’re considering filling the vacancy internally, you can notify the employees during meetings or via email.

However, if you’re looking for external candidates, you’ll need to craft the job advert to attract top talents.

As we mentioned earlier, highlight the company’s strengths, reputation, any accolades earned, and the perks for the successful candidates. These may include tailored health cover, opportunities for growth, and other perks the company offers.

Most importantly, you need to advertise the job on many platforms to reach a wider audience. This may include industry publications, social media pages, local newspapers, etc.

Depending on the role you’re looking to fill, you may need to tap into a more passive network. Some ideas include networking, referrals, LinkedIn recruiter, and database search.

Step 4: Screen the Applications

Next is the screening process.

As applications start flowing in, you’ll need to devise a process for reviewing them. One way is to use recruiting software like the Applicant Tracking System (ATS).

If your HR processes are not automated, you could allocate one or more junior officers to evaluate the applications and narrow down the list to only qualified candidates.

For best results, it’s recommended to use an ATS. This robust system will analyze the candidates and search for any flaws in the recruitment process. It filters candidates based on a set criterion and makes it easy for HRs to shortlist qualified candidates.

The good thing about using an ATS is that it ranks applicants based on their qualifications for the role. The program then forwards resumes with the highest matches to HR.

If you’ve received a lot of job applications via email, an ATS can help narrow down the applications to only those that qualify for the role.

Step 5: Assembling the Interview Panel

Interviewing is a critical step in the recruitment process.

As such, you’ll want to ensure you have the right interviewers on board and that they can retrieve the information you need from the candidate.

Having the right number of interviewers in the panel is recommended—not too many or too few. In most cases, three interviewers are enough.

The composition of this panel will depend on the nature of the role.

For instance, if you’re interviewing for a top management role, the panel should include HR representatives, such as the HR manager and someone from the top management.

Step 6: Interviewing the Shortlisted Candidates

Once you’ve settled on the interview panel, the next step is to conduct the interviews.

If the team is remote, the interview can be conducted virtually. Here are the steps you should undertake to ensure a successful interview process.

Conduct a Phone Interview

Now that you have an interview panel and a pool of job applicants, conduct a phone interview with each shortlisted candidate.

A phone interview should be a short briefing of about 10 to 30 minutes. Ask a few “get to know you” questions and inquiries about their skills and their interest in your company. This interview should give you insights into who the candidate is and their soft skills.

Testing of Technical Skills

If the job requires technical skills, your recruiters should conduct an in-person interview to gauge the candidate’s proficiency in those skills. This test can also be conducted via videoconference if your company’s recruitment policy allows it.

For coding roles and other tech jobs requiring problem-solving skills, the recruiting team should identify a problem and let the candidates demonstrate their skills in solving the problem. You can then deduce their proficiency based on the time taken to solve the problem and the effectiveness of the solution provided.

The results from the technical test should give you ideas about how much onboarding training the new hire will need.

Testing Communication Skills

No matter the nature of the job, you’ll need a candidate who can communicate effectively. This is essential for reporting and collaboration purposes.

You’ll be able to deduce a candidate’s communication skills through verbal communication—the very act of interacting with them. If the role requires a lot of writing, you can give them a test to gauge their writing proficiency in the subject language.

Conduct Applicable Assessments

Depending on the nature of the role, you may want the candidates to perform applicable assessments. For instance, if you’re hiring for an editing role, you may give the candidate an erroneous document and have them perform an editing exercise.

Assessments are necessary because they help substantiate that the candidate possesses the skills they claim to have.

Step 7: Run a Background Check and Contact References

Running pre-employment background checks and contacting references is an important part of the hiring process. The purpose of background checks is to ensure the candidate is legally fit to take on the role. Pre-employment background checks, on the other hand, validate the information provided on the resume.

Step 8: Make a Hiring Decision

Use the knowledge gained throughout the entire recruitment process to determine the most suitable candidate(s) for the job.

Consult each member of the recruitment panel to hear their thoughts on each candidate. Consider qualifications, experience, communication skills, and cultural fit when hiring.

Don’t make decisions based on biases or discrimination. This defeats the DEI principles discussed earlier and can taint your company’s reputation.

Step 9: Extend a Job Offer

Once you’ve analyzed the candidates and consulted the interview panel on the best pick, extend the job offer to the most qualified candidate(s).

Give the candidate(s) a call and notify them of the offer. Have a conversation with them about the offer and learn their thoughts about the hiring process. If they are still interested, extend the verbal offer to them.

Provide them with a start date and confirm the salary. Explain the next steps and notify them of when they can expect the Written Letter of Offer. Make sure to follow up with an email detailing everything you discussed on the phone.

Step 10: Onboarding

The hiring process doesn’t end once the candidate accepts the offer.

You have to welcome them professionally, train them, and integrate them into the company activities. This is where you provide orientation and explain the company’s mission, vision, core, values, and even the company’s culture.

Onboarding provides the first impression about your company. Therefore, it should be well executed to ensure the new hire integrates well with the rest of the staff and stays with the company long-term. Done properly, onboarding improves the morale of the new hires.

How to Revamp Your Recruitment Process

Refined recruitment processes are productive, efficient, and pleasant for interviewers and candidates. The recruitment process determines the outcome of the hiring exercise.

And your business cannot afford to make bad hiring decisions. Hire the wrong candidate, and you’ll lose money, time, and customers. Make the right hire, and your business will benefit from more revenue and improved customer relationships.

That said, establishing a successful hiring process can help improve your hires’ quality and make the hiring process more transparent and efficient. Here are the various ways you can improve your recruitment process to reflect industry best practices.

1. Remove Implicit Bias from Your Job Adverts

Implicit biases—The unconscious beliefs and assumptions we make about people—can prevent us from creating a diverse, inclusive team.

In some cases, implicit biases can affect your recruitment process even before you start searching for candidates. Since implicit biases present a form of discrimination, they can taint your company’s reputation and even put you on the wrong side of the law.

Some seemingly innocuous words in your job postings can be loaded with gendered connotations and prejudiced words that can put potential candidates off. So, aim to remove implicit bias and discriminative terms from your job ads.

2. Evaluate Candidates Effectively

A revamped recruitment process employs screening methods that help recruitment teams pick the most qualified candidates. Here are a few of these methods.

• Structure Your Interviews – Interviews that are not structured can’t tell a candidate’s abilities effectively. To structure your interviews, prepare your questions before the interview and tie them to job requirements. It’s good to use each of these questions for all candidates and score the questions using the same scale.
• Try Tests – Ask the candidates to take standardized tests. These tests can give a candidate’s assessments in areas you won’t find on the resume, such as a candidate’s personality. Personality tests aren’t perfect, so it’s a good idea to combine them with other assessment methods before disqualifying candidates.

Review Work Samples – Evaluate work samples from the candidates’ portfolios or ask them to take skill-based tests as part of your recruitment. For example, if you’re hiring coders or developers, consider using a tech recruiting platform, codility, that provides coding tests in an online environment.

Additionally, invest in training your recruitment team to help them evaluate candidates better.

3. Improve Your Recruitment Efficiency

Improving your recruitment efficiency reduces the recruitment time, streamlines the hiring process, improves the candidate’s experience, and strengthens your employer’s brand. It also gives your organization a competitive advantage in a competitive market.

Here are the various ways to improve your efficiency as a recruiter.

• Invest in Recruiting Software – Automating the recruitment process saves you time and money, especially when recruiting remote candidates.
• Use Email Templates – Personalized emails can do the trick, but you may not always know where to start. Instead, choose branded email templates to invite candidates to interview or ask for referrals. Always update your templates regularly to reflect the latest recruitment policies and company information.

Create Checklists for all the Processes – Checklists help ensure the recruitment process goes as planned. Use them to screen calls and prepare for interviews to ensure you have all the information you need before interviewing anyone.

The efficiency of your recruitment process also reflects how effective your company is at handling other things outside of recruitment.

4. Boost Your Candidate Sourcing

One of the steps to getting top talents is to ensure your job posting reaches the maximum number of people. That means you’ll need to source candidates from virtually any platform with a vast user base—online and offline.

Discover passive candidates with these handy sourcing techniques:

• Invest in sourcing tools – Sourcing tools can help you quickly find qualified candidates for your open roles.
• Get Referrals – Referrals are a great way to find quality hires. Create and promote referral programs with incentives.
• Use Boolean Search – Boolean search helps you quickly discover people’s resumes. Use Boolean strings on LinkedIn and Google to search potential candidates’ profiles on social media
• Attend Events – Expand your sourcing by attending networking and other industry events—a goldmine for top talents.
• Source on Social Media – Follow conversations on popular social media platforms like LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter. Look for people interested in the roles you’re looking to fill.

5. Don’t Ask the Magic Questions

“What would you do if you had Superman powers for 24 hours?”

Really? No serious candidate would be thrilled by such questions. Some might even badmouth your recruitment personnel, dismissing them as incompetent.

When interviewing a candidate, focus on questions related to the job. That is, try to learn more about their skills and work experience to determine if they’re a good fit.

Business Strategies to Bring World-Class Talent

The secret to successful hiring depends on the recruitment process and the strategies employed. Follow these strategies to attract world-class talent.

1. Hire Internationally

Considering local candidates only limits the candidates you’ll find for your team.

To expand the talent pool exponentially, broaden your hiring net to include international candidates. As more and more companies embrace remote and hybrid working models, it’s becoming easier for organizations to add international candidates to their teams.

Digital collaboration tools are also becoming ubiquitous, making remote collaboration effortless. One of the benefits of hiring internationally is that you gain unique insights into the perspectives of potential clients around the world.

2. Employ Gamification

Gamification is now a buzzword in virtually all industries.

It involves the application of gaming and behavioral psychology to incentivize people to behave in certain ways—whether they are employees, jobseekers, or customers.

In recruitment, gamification aims to create job-like experiences and scenarios in the form of gameplay to engage candidates in specified activities. Those who perform exceptionally well are likely to be interviewed and hired.

If you’re considering employing this strategy, there are some crucial questions you should ask yourself, including:

• What kind of game will candidates play?
• What will success look like for recruitment?
• How will we measure results?
• How will we align the game with the job and the skills needed?

The advantage of gamification in recruitment is that games give the candidates the opportunity to showcase their creativity, competencies, and agility.

Mistakes Companies Make When Hiring and How to Avoid Them

The pressure to fill vacant positions often leads companies to hire the wrong people, which is costly. According to the US Department of Labor, a wrong hiring decision can cost a business as much as 30% of the employee’s salary.  

Here are the common mistakes companies make when hiring and how to avoid them.

1. Resisting Technology

Does your HR department still rely on manual recruitment processes?

If so, you’re making a costly mistake. Sifting through a mountain of resumes is not only time-consuming but tiresome too.

Plus, chances are you or your junior staff won’t be able to go through all resumes. Many organizations will only screen up to 250 resumes and then look for the best candidate from the list. The danger to this is that the best candidate’s resume could be buried somewhere in the resumes you didn’t evaluate.

Solution

Use an applicant tracking system (ATS)

Using an ATS allows recruiters to execute a more efficient workflow. It also provides a better and faster CV screening, allowing recruiters to screen thousands of resumes and shortlist qualified candidates in a shorter time.

2. Not Being Transparent Enough About Pay

Attracting the best candidates is one thing, but successfully negotiating and hiring them is another. One mistake that many companies make is not being transparent with the compensation. Traditionally, salary negotiation is often left for the last stage.

However, top candidates usually have many offers to consider and may catch the recruitment manager off-guard with high salary expectations.

In such situations, hiring managers may give unconfirmed figures to encourage the candidate to take the offer. While this may work at the beginning, it can lead to higher employee turnover down the line.

Solution

Recruiters should always perform comprehensive research into the relevant position and inform the hiring managers of the standard pay.

3. Speeding Through the Selection Process

One of the top reasons for hiring the wrong employees is speeding up the hiring process. Most companies are often in a rush to fill the positions that they end up not giving the selection process the time and effort it deserves.

The result? Skipping some critical steps, such as background checks, often results in employees who aren’t a good fit for the company.

Solution

Invest quality time in vetting the applications, spend some time interviewing the candidates and checking background checks, and contacting references.

Go for a second and a final round of interviews if needed. Doing so ensures you settle on the best candidates, culturally fit to work in your company. 

Start Attracting Top Talent Today

Attracting top talent is one of the top challenges faced by many organizations. However, you can source, attract, and recruit the best candidates by refining your recruitment process.

In addition to revamping your recruitment process, you’ll also need to adopt the best hiring strategies and avoid the common recruitment pitfalls.

We hope this guide will help you revamp your recruitment strategy and attract top talents. Feel free to comment and share!