Due to the structural skills shortage in most industries, the only honest response we can say to requests for recruitment are ‘we can’t promise that we will find you anyone good but we will exhaust every avenue looking’. Any other response is hollow sales spin and BS.
Since Covid, the recruitment industry has had a complete structural change. Most good people you are looking for aren’t sitting at home applying for jobs, they already have a job but are looking for a better job.
The famous Jim Collins mantra that success is about finding the right people and ensuring they are sitting on the right seats of the bus. Then get out of their way. This has never more relevant in today’s workplace.
What are your options?
Work with a recruitment agency
You could work with a professional recruitment agency. Be aware there are some unethical operators who have a stable of people who they relocate from business to business while taking large commissions as they go. Find a good recruiter you can trust who provides a 6-month replacement guarantee.
Incentivise existing employees
Incentivise your current team to help find people. We have a client who pays their team members $3K to find good people within their network.
Search by yourself
You can go it alone and do it directly yourself. This works if you have people in your team with the skills and time to do this effectively. We find that sometimes people outside of HR are delegated this task but are stretched beyond their capability level.
Work with a HR Consultant
Work with a HR Consulting Team who understands the culture of your business and are not incentivised to place people. Keep in mind the HR Consulting Team is focused on nurturing a sustainable long term relationship with your business which creates a nice alternative to dealing with a recruiter.
Utilise social media
Use every type of social media available based on the type of role you are filling. We use Seek as the default and then post the job link on the most effective social media platform so we can manage the candidates in the best way possible. Be cautious of jumping to the latest employment app.
Seek can used as the base of any type of recruitment because other services such as Indeed and Jora have less applicants to choose from and are generally harder to use with different payment methods compared to Seek. Depending on the type of recruitment, LinkedIn and Facebook marketing can also be used to reach other audiences.
Psychometric testing
The strategic use of psychometric testing adds an additional layer of data to help make an effective decision – we use Talogy as our preferred option.
This layer of information can allow organisations to understand how best to manage their employees and which type of communication is suitable for both parties. This allows further transparency and can allow employees to feel more comfortable in their roles and be focused on higher performance due to a stronger work culture.
Creating a strong and attractive advertisement
- By emphasizing benefits and focusing more on the responsibilities of the role you will find more applicants apply.
- Implementing a type of bonus instead of a higher salary could be a way of creating a benefit that applicants may feel attracted towards.
- If the role can be implemented from home, do not feel opposed to this idea. Working from home is not going away any time soon and like COVID has shown, the best way we can respond is by being proactive and being contingent. The general rule for creating a great ad and an attractive role should be: if the role can be conducted from home, make it hybrid.
- Do not focus on the years of experience if the skills can be taught. This is a trap applicants and employers can fall into due to the low supply of applicants with 5+ years’ experience in a particular item. If the skills can be taught, the years of experience is not the most important thing.
Some of the pitfalls
- Recruiting people purely based on technical skills or because of their extensive network rarely works out in the long-term. They can become the corporate psychopath who is a behavioural nightmare
- The costs of a poor recruitment decision cannot be underestimated in terms of replacing the person and the negative impacts on culture
- Watch your own frustration level because the process may seem hopeless and the easy option is to give up. Think of it like fishing – be patient, it takes time and you need to keep your line in the water.
Top 3 qualities we look for when recruiting
- Hire people who have the right attitude and values as the first priority
- It’s not always about the qualifications and the experience – skills can be trained
- A willingness to grow, adapt and self-improve is critical in today’s dynamic workplace