Best practice for hiring staff in a very tight labour market

Any company that wants to succeed requires good employees – those with the right skills, abilities, personal attributes and attitudes.  Yet employers in almost every industry are struggling to find the people they need.  In this post we provide some pointers for small and medium sized business owners about how to go about creating an effective recruitment strategy that will help you attract and hire the appropriate talent.

Take a standardised and consistent approach

If you use the same process for all candidates this makes it much easier to make meaningful comparisons.  It’s also fairer as it eliminates the potential for bias and subjectivity to influence your hiring processes.  What’s more, a well conducted and standardised process will reflect well on your organisation and make a favourable impression with candidates.

Understand the job requirements

If you are the owner of a very small business you may have a pretty good idea of what the job entails (you might well have been doing it yourself until the business started to grow).  However, in a slightly larger organisation the owner/manager or hiring manager may not have that detailed knowledge.  It’s important that the person responsible for filling that vacance learns as much as possible about the details of the role before starting to develop a job description.  The best way to gain this information is to take the time to talk to staff and managers who are more closely involved with this part of the business.

What kind of person are you looking for?

As well as defining the job itself you need to build up a picture of the ideal person to fill it – their skills, qualifications and their personal characteristics.  Do they need specific IT capabilities, are you expecting them to be very creative and capable of solving problems with little supervision, do they need to be good communicators who work well in a team…?  The more specific you are about exactly the kind of person you want the better your chances of finding someone who is a good fit.

Create an accurate job description.

You do this by combining the information you have collected about the job and your ideal candidate.  Include a description of your business, details of the role, preferred experience, required skill sets, personal qualities you are looking for along with a description of salary and other benefits.  Try and communicate something about the company culture – this will attract suitable candidates and discourage those who are unlikely to be a good fit.

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Advertise the position

Publicise your opportunity of job boards, ideally those that are specific to your industry.  Social media is also a great tool for spreading the word – share the job description with all your contacts and encourage them to spread the word.  It’s also a good idea to set up an applicant tracking system that is capable of collecting and sorting applications.

Don’t overlook internal talent

Promoting people from within has many benefits.  They are already familiar with your business, so onboarding is not an issue.  Also, you already know what skills and personal characteristics they have, so that reduces the risk of hiring someone who turns out to be unsuitable.  Finally, it improves company morale by showing your staff that there are excellent opportunities for progression within the company.

Manage your pool of candidates

Collect all your applications (external and internal) in one place using your applicant tracking system.  Review each applicant by comparing them to the requirements listed in your job description.  Hopefully you’ll be able to compile a shortlist of about 10 candidates who tick most or all of the boxes.  You might like to create a reserve list of 5 others in case some of your prime candidates have dropped out or you struggle to contact them.

Do your due diligence

Gaining a full understand a candidate's priorities and personality through interviews alone can be challenging.  It’s smart to research their backgrounds and check the references they’ve provided before you meet them – this will help you engage with them and ask more probing questions.  You’ll gain useful insights by examining their internet presence and social media footprint (most candidates understand that what they post online will be viewed by prospective employers).  This type of search will reveal information about a candidate's interpersonal nature, creativity, intelligence, social responsibility and more.  Make sure you take good notes during this process so you can refer back to these points when speaking to each candidate.

Make preliminary calls

Conduct first round interviews with all the candidates on your shortlist on the telephone or using some kind of video conferencing platform such as Zoom.  This will give you an opportunity to meet and greet candidates and gain some further insight into their background, personality, experience and interest in the job.

Check what they tell you against your research notes and the feedback you got from their references – you want to make sure you are not being misled!  Also pay close attention to their manner to try and gauge their personality and attitudes – will they be a good fit in your team?

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Final interviews

Leave a few days between the preliminary call and the final interview so you and the candidates have time to prepare properly.  You should draw up a list of topics you want to discuss, with a mix of closed and open questions to ask.  These should obviously be related to the job description.  When you print the list leave plenty of room for writing down their answers and any notes you want to add.

You should also use the interview to ensure the candidate has a good understanding of your company, its culture and what is expected of them.  Take them on a tour of your premises, talk through the company background, your future plans and the kind of career prospects (with benefits such as salary, pensions, staff discounts and any other perks).  You are evaluating them but understand that the reverse is also true!

Having said that, the focus should be mainly on them.  They may be nervous but it’s important that they do most of the talking.  Listen carefully, take detailed notes and don’t be afraid to dig a bit further – asking “that’s interesting, could you tell me a bit more about that?” is a great way to draw people out and get them to reveal what may be behind their initial answer.

As well as covering what’s on the job description you really want to discover everything you can about the candidate’s work ethic, job history, future career aspirations and expectations of your company.  If you manage to get this depth of information every time it will be easy to select the right person to fill your position.

Experience and skills are not everything

Employers tend to favour candidates who have the right credentials in terms of skills and experience.  However, don’t overlook those who score less highly on these criteria but possess drive, energy and potential – they can be trained and taught the skills they need to excel in a role and may be better at adapting to meet your organisations changing needs.

Make an offer to your chosen candidate

To pick your first choice candidate sit down with your hiring manager, and any others who may have attended the interviews, to compare notes.  Discuss both their strengths and their weaknesses and any doubts that anyone has about them – make notes (these will be useful when you onboard and train them).   Now decide on three individuals, your top pick and two others in case your first choice turns the offer down. 

Start the onboarding process

You need to get them up to speed as soon as possible and provide everything they need to do a great job.  Explain their benefits, duties, and responsibilities.  You’ll also need to familiarise them with all the business processes that are relevant to them.  Set up their credentials so they can access your software systems, provide them with any hardware they need and introduce them to the rest of the team.  The onboarding process will be much easier, and more effective, if you have an employee handbook to give your new hire.  Creating such a document is another subject in itself but suffice to say that if you haven’t got one then it’s probably time you set this right!

 A final staff retention tip

Once you’ve got the people you need it’s important to hang onto them. To do this you need to make them feel appreciated, provide training and development as well as creating a team spirit. Clevedon Hall is a great venue for hosting training sessions, team building days and company parties. Our staff have all the event planning and management capabilities to make organising it easy and to ensure the day is a terrific success - just get in touch!




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