In today's talent shortage, every minute and candidate counts. Whether you’re taking on a part-time employee to meet new demand or replacing an experienced team member who’s moving on, finding great people takes work.
Sure, you could rewrite an old job ad, throw it up online, wait for applicants, and then select the one you warm to the most, but if you expect to get the best fit for the role and your company, you’re going to need to take a more effective approach. In this article, we’ll share why effective recruitment is so important to your business and how we can help you reduce your time to hire and your cost per hire.
What is effective recruitment?
Effective recruitment means more than hiring the right person for the job. A fast and efficient recruitment process can reduce costs, enhance a company’s reputation both from a market and candidate perspective and ensure that the very best talent is identified, engaged and brought into the business.
However, within the fast-moving business world, time and budget constraints, a lack of targeted talent management skills and demanding pressures from other parts of the business can mean that hiring managers are often left stuck with a situation in which the process becomes long, drawn-out and disengaging.
From writing the initial job specification to advertising, from wading through hundreds of CVs of aspiring candidates to trying to identify those worthy of assessment, from trying to find the time within an increasingly busy schedule to thoroughly interview, and then re-interview, and then co-ordinate further interviews with additional members of the team – all whilst managing and absorbing the deficit left behind by the vacant gap within the organization, it can be, in short – a nightmare.
In order to avoid the recruitment minefield, many organizations turn to specialist recruitment consultancies in order to not just expedite and take the stress out of the process, but also to ensure the process is smooth and effective in order to attract and retain the best talent and maintain a strong employer brand in terms of business efficiency and the overall candidate experience.
There are many reasons for this, so let's look at the top reasons for doing recruitment well.
Attract the right talent
It’s often said that it’s better to hire no one than hire the wrong person.
Having an effective recruitment process means you start with a clear understanding of what the business needs, then you communicate that well to attract quality candidates, and carefully select the one who best meets those requirements.
It’s more than just finding the most talented or qualified people. It’s about getting the right talent for the role and the company; people with the best possible skill-set and the right personality for the team and business.
Every stage is important, from defining the job through to interviewing and reference-checking candidates, and the combined effectiveness determines whether your new employee will turn out to be an asset or a liability.
Improve retention
High employee turnover can be a real killer for your company’s long-term prospects, but if your recruitment and selection processes are effective, you will be far more likely to consistently pick people who perform well and remain loyal employees.
It's all about using defined methods and assessments (rather than gut feelings) to identify applicants who will commit to the role and the company’s mission, and then successfully bringing them into the team.
If you are regularly losing people within the first 90 days of employment, it’s a clear sign your recruitment practices aren't up to scratch.
Increase productivity
An efficient, seamless recruitment experience increases the likelihood that new employees will be more engaged and motivated from the get-go, which improves their long-term chance of succeeding in the job and working to build the business.
A large 2012 study by the Boston Consulting Group into the relationship between people management and financial performance found that “companies that are experienced at recruiting enjoyed 3.5 times the revenue growth and 2.0 times the profit margin of their less-capable peers”.
Apart from the effect of their own poor performance, hiring the wrong person can create stress and conflict in the team, and suck up management time that you could spend on developing your people and the business.
Save time and money
Building a team of dependable, motivated employees is best for your bottom line.
No one wants to waste all the effort and money to attract, select, and establish new hires only to find out they aren’t up to scratch or don’t fit your culture. Then you faced having to retrain them, or worse, go back to square one, and look for a replacement.
If your recruitment campaigns are consistently effective, you’ll be way more likely to get the right person each time and have the confidence you can do so whenever the business needs it.
Reduce legal risk
The recruitment process forms the base for the employment relationship, so having rigorous, transparent procedures that you follow for every new hire reduces the chances of finding yourself in legal disputes.
That means being sure you hire without discrimination or bias, adhering to privacy and human rights regulations, ensuring your new employee is permitted to work, and that they get a watertight employment contract to sign before they start.
If you and your new team member start off with a clear understanding of the position, each other’s expectations, and rights and responsibilities, you will be less likely to run the increasing risk of unfair dismissal claims against you.
Contribute to team diversity
Aside from the legal considerations, robust recruitment practices that are free from potential biases and discrimination helps you create a stronger, more diverse team.
This is more than “feel-good” rhetoric or box-ticking. A diverse workforce that brings a wide range of perspectives and approaches is proven to be better for business performance and resilience, with improved employee engagement and retention.
It could be a balanced gender mix on your board, a variety of ethnicities in your customer service team (so customers feel connected to the people who are helping them), or ensuring that you’re not just hiring carbon-copy employees who won’t bring fresh ideas and innovation to your team.
Being open to diversity also means you’ll draw from a wider pool of talent and be a far more attractive company to potential employees.
How Tengai can help you recruit more efficiently
At Tengai, we understand just how important talent attraction and retention are. This is why we’re dedicated to helping you innovate your recruitment process with our AI interview software.
Effectively use our social avatar designed to conduct objective job interviews.
You’re now able to pre-screen multiple candidates during blind interviews, and through an interviewer who treats all candidates the same, always asks the same questions, and doesn’t care about appearance, gender, or age.
Our Conversational Artificial Intelligence (CAI) technology, allows a computer to mimic and carry out conversational experiences with candidates. Our AI-powered software is able to understand, process, and respond to human language. This enables humans and computers to communicate clearly and effectively through both speech and text.
To find out more about how we can help you streamline and raise the effectiveness of your recruitment processes please get in touch.