With growth back at the top of the agenda for most organisations, talent attraction and recruitment processes need to be slicker than ever. I recently hosted a round table breakfast event on ‘Attractive Recruitment’. With guests coming from a range of sectors including Media, Retail, Public Sector and Travel, it provided a great opportunity for us to gain insight into what HR and Recruitment professionals face when it comes to recruiting for their organisations.
The morning’s agenda covered Employer Branding, on-boarding experiences, Recruitment Investment and managing a successful talent pool. What was clear across the board was that it doesn’t matter the size of your company, your brand, budget or experience; organisations were facing similar challenges when it came to managing a successful recruitment process.
Success can be measured a number of different ways; Did you attract the right number and type of applicants? Was the cost of recruitment within budget? Did it increase the employer brand? Did you hire the right person? And finally, did every single applicant successful or not, have a positive experience with your brand? Successful recruitment is not just about finding the right person for the job anymore, it’s genuinely gone ‘long term’ and putting your head in the sand isn’t going to get your company anywhere. It’s about using every opportunity to increase the company profile, boast about your wins and ambitions, showing off to the market what your company is all about!
What is easily forgotten (time and time again) is that an unsuccessful applicant now could be a customer, a competitor, or an employee later. As social media grows and networks become larger and more easily accessible, we need to ensure that recruitment processes are regarded as a positive experience; you want people to walk away feeling positive about your brand regardless of the outcome.
With unemployment at its lowest in years, employers also need to recognise that applicants are getting more opportunities to consider. They therefore need to be excited about the opportunity and believe in the organisation before getting to offer stage. It’s not always about throwing money at the potential candidate – people make decisions as a whole taking into account career progression, culture, being surrounded by experts, commitment to CSR, etc . As an employer, what are you doing different to stand out in the recruitment market? Are your processes appealing enough to give your employer brand the credit it deserves?
Michael is a Consultant in London and his recruitment processes are slicker than ever!
