Simple ways to improve recruitment processes within your business

In today’s market, hiring can be very competitive.

Top professionals are wanted by multiple firms, so it’s important to ensure your recruitment process is efficient and effective in attracting top talent over your competitors.

Candidates now often have multiple options and aren’t just applying for one company at a time. In addition, the average cost of hiring an employee in the UK is £6,125 (StandOutCV).

As a result, it’s important for businesses to refine their recruitment and selection processes, to attract and secure the top talent in their industry. This article by the team at the Eventus Recruitment Group contains tips to improve your recruitment process, to make sure you are a professional’s first choice employer.

Let’s start at the very beginning…

The Job Advert
The job advert should be clear, informative and include all relevant information related to the job and company that will make the role stand out. Many companies neglect their job adverts. As a result, the job advert makes a great starting point for improvements in your recruitment process. Here’s our tips for improving your job adverts:

Job Description
It’s imperative that the job description attracts the talent you are seeking.

Provide an overview of the role and the day-to-day responsibilities, don’t forget to include some interesting information about the role.

Person Specification
Be as descriptive as you can, you want to attract the right candidates.

Include the level and type of experience the candidate needs to demonstrate.
What skills do they need for the role? Don’t forget soft skills that are required.

Benefits and Rewards
Candidates who are actively looking will be interested in what you have to offer.

Make sure you list all additional benefits included with the role. For example, enhanced holidays or pension contributions, hybrid / flexible working, healthcare benefits, death in service benefits.
Don't include standard holidays or pension as a benefit, they’re statutory and shouldn’t be included. Of course include them, if you offer above the statutory entitlement, as this will be beneficial to candidates.
Be transparent about your benefits throughout the recruitment process. For example, if you are vague about your hybrid working policy candidates will be put off accepting a job within your company.

Company information
This is where you showcase your firm.

Talk about the team, services, business awards and why it is such a wonderful place to work.

Proofread your adverts

Always proofread your job adverts or get a colleague to double check them.
If there are mistakes in the adverts it can give a bad impression to professionals.
Job adverts often provide the first impression of your company to potential employees, make it count.

Always, we discuss the above job advert areas when working with you. We do this for two reasons:

So, that we can produce an enticing job advert that will rank highly on job boards on your behalf.
So, that we can discuss all these points with candidates as we approach them and represent your firm as best as we can when speaking to professionals. Particularly, it’s important when trying to engage with candidates who aren’t actively looking, as we want to present them with as much information about the opportunity and your business as possible.

Advert Response
Once we have candidates apply and you have their CVs you need to be responsive.

Regardless of whether or not you want to take that candidate to the next stage it is important to give feedback. As, even though the applicant might not be right for your firm, they could know someone who could be perfect. Also, the applicant could be the perfect fit for your company in future. If you ignore their application and don’t respond, they are unlikely to recommend your firm to others and apply to job vacancies again in future.
If you are looking to take the candidate to the next stage you should aim to get back to them as soon as you can, ideally within 24 hours. Otherwise, they could start looking at other roles and you could lose the candidate to another firm due to a slow response.

The Job Interview
It’s important to remember this is a two-way process.

Prepare conversation starters and questions that will make the interview feel like a conversation.
Consider what you want to know about the candidate, their experience and aspirations and use this as a basis for your conversation.
Ask them what they know about the firm. Add to this with anything else you feel is important for them to understand or that will make your firm stand out.
Talk about the team and the culture, why do people like working there.
Once you have gone through your questions and conversation starters, don’t forget to ask the candidate if they have any questions. This is great, as it will give you an indication as to whether the candidate has prepared for the interview.

Job Interview Feedback
This stage is often forgotten but if you think that candidate might be the right one for you why would you leave them hanging?

Although you may not yet have made a decision you should give your candidate some initial feedback to keep them engaged (they could be interviewing elsewhere).
If you are working with us, we will have already spoken to the candidate and asked them how they feel the interview went.

The Decision
You should communicate your decision as soon as possible even if you aren’t hiring that particular candidate.

Give an indication at the end of the job interview of when the decision will be made.
Make the decision timely. It is understandable you may be interviewing other candidates but don’t leave it too long before making your final decision. This is where we often see firms lose good candidates.
Always notify all candidates interviewed of your decision, as they have given a lot time to your company. If it isn’t a positive outcome for that candidate, give some clear feedback as to why it is a no. This will help them understand your decision. Also, providing constructive feedback will help them improve for their next job interview.

The Offer
As mentioned earlier, the candidates could be interviewing at various firms and this could mean they have multiple offers. We are seeing this increasingly in today’s market.

Explain why you are making the offer and don’t just base it around their hard skills and experience also include why you think they will be a fantastic addition to the firm.
Make the offer clear and put it in writing – don’t forget to include the above information on the offer letter.
Don’t forget that the candidate is likely to be made a counter offer so make sure your offer stands out and shows the candidate how much you value them.
Keep in touch with the successful candidate after they’ve accepted the office and before their first day in your company. Some ways to do this include, sending them a welcome pack or gift, and inviting them to company social events.

It doesn’t stop here…
The recruitment process doesn’t end with a hire. When your chosen candidate starts, it’s important to have a thorough onboarding process and continue to keep engagement high. Otherwise, they could easily become complacent.

Regularly check in with your new employees to see how they are finding settling in and what accommodations you can make to make their jobs easier if needs be.
Set clear and defined goals with them so they are headed in the right direction and know what is expected from the get-go.
Offer a buddy programme so they have continuous support and feel part of the team quickly.

We hope you have found this article useful and have established some steps to take to improve your recruitment process. If you would like more tips and tailored advice on improving your recruitment process, don’t hesitate to contact the team at the Eventus Recruitment Group at [email protected] or on 01524 34400.

The Eventus Recruitment Group are award-winning recruitment specialists in the Legal, Finance, Financial Planning and Mortgage sectors. We have an experienced and knowledgeable team of industry experts, who can advise on your recruitment processes and are passionate about sourcing the best candidates to help businesses thrive across the UK.