Hire smart, fast: 7 essential strategies to secure top talent

Examining your salary and benefits package, considering ways to improve employee engagement and retention and improving learning and development are important tasks for any business. But it’s crucial to begin at the beginning: how’s your hiring process? An open position will never be filled by a top performer if your interview structure, or lack thereof, leaves much to be desired. Even in a down economy, A+ candidates have good options, and they won’t stick around for a long, confusing or simply disrespectful process.

Before you can focus on keeping a wonderful employee, you must first interview and hire them. Here are seven ways you can improve your hiring process to set the right tone and move with efficiency.

Bring clarity to what matters. Sometimes hiring managers treat a job description with an “everything but the kitchen sink” mentality. Potential candidates will be turned off by a job description that includes irrelevant duties and outdated qualifications. Ensure your expectations are sensible and appropriate.

Reach out quickly. When a candidate looks promising, schedule an interview without delay. In a slow job market, managers are tempted to put candidates on the back burner, but this is unwise. In the same way that you are appraising a job seeker, the job seeker is also appraising you. The first contact a candidate has with your company is significant. As the saying goes: you don’t get a second chance to make a first impression. You will miss out on someone who goes to your competitor instead of waiting for you.

Streamline your interviews. Do you require excessive interviews and include attendees who will never work with the candidate? The hiring process must function as a well-oiled machine. Each step should have a purpose and each person involved should be necessary. Just as “too many cooks in the kitchen will spoil the broth,” requesting too many interviews and/or too many attendees will spoil your interview structure.

Keep your momentum. Are you allowing lag times between interviews? Once the fire is burning, it’s better to sizzle than to fizzle. If the first interview was three weeks ago and you are only now calling the candidate for a second interview, that’s a problem and will register as a red flag with the candidate.

Use an honest approach. No one likes the bait-and-switch routine. Does the job require travel? If it’s remote, is it truly 100% remote or will you ask the person to be onsite periodically? Is your posted salary range accurate? How would you characterize the company culture? Truthful expectations communicated clearly to the interviewee also ensure that the person hired understands and consents to the responsibilities, which reduces turnover.

Make a respectable offer in a timely fashion. Some companies poison the well by extending a lowball offer first, in the hopes that the candidate will either accept it automatically or make a slight counter. A-player candidates often receive counter offers from their current employers so making a strong offer will help ensure candidates aren’t tempted by a counter. In the current climate, a high-caliber candidate will simply move on and refuse to play games. Likewise, A-players will not stick around and hope that maybe — just maybe — you will make them an offer. They will assume an offer is not coming or that you have selected someone else as your top choice, but are keeping them in the hopper as a Plan B.

Manage yourself appropriately. Back in the day, job seekers were expected to practically beg for a job and cater to the hiring managers. This is no longer the case, particularly in this post-Great Resignation environment. If you believe, “I don’t have time to call candidates and schedule interviews quickly,” you’re in big trouble. When hiring is a true priority, excuses about time tend to fly out the window. Ensure that you bring appropriate focus to the interview process and extend the same courtesy to job seekers that you want them to give to you.

BIC Recruiting takes the hard work and stress out of finding someone amazing. From there, you must provide a sensible interview and hiring process to employ the best candidate.

For more information, visit BICRecruiting.com, email trosario@bicrecruiting.com or call (281) 538-9996.