A recent seminar we held discussed how in house recruiters can, and should be assessing quality of hire across all recruitment channels to ensure their business is delivering ‘best value’ recruitment. It is no secret that some organisations believe that hiring should be done at the lowest possible cost
This can often lead in house recruiters with the dilemma of being expected to deliver quality hires on the one hand, but without the necessary budget, or tools to do on the other. The seminar we held, attended by top name brands including MITIE, Legal & General and Harrods saw three top industry speakers discuss how attendees can successfully, and easily assess quality of hire.
Roger Philby of Chemistry talked about building a value of hire model. With an alarming 3 out of 4 hires being wrong, Roger explained that businesses should be focussing their efforts on creating a values based hiring model. They need to define What Good Looks Like (WGLL) for their company and the predictors for success, which in the case of Chemistry is as follows:
- Intellect
- Values
- Motivations
- Behaviours
- Experience
By measuring potential candidates against these five factors (in the order above, which represent from the top the hardest to change, to the easiest at the bottom), a business is far more likely to choose the people with the correct attributes needed to fit the culture of a business. This, Roger explained resulted in a far better quality of hire.
Matt Alder of MetaShift talked about the value of social media in recruitment. Matt sought to answer the question of whether organisations should expect a better quality of hire with social media. And the answer was yes. By engaging candidates, sharing information with them, and using existing employees to do so, they are far more informed about the culture and values of a business. An example of a business doing so was that of Unilever and their Facebook page.
Matt continued and covered talent communities, and how they can assist with quality and time to hire. The example he used here was of well known law firm Pinsent Masons. Through using a talent community the company has had 50% fewer applicants, of those interviewed for Pinsent & Mason, 71% interviewed were offered a position, and of those 100% accepted. A sure sign that by engaging with candidates and showing them what you have on offer prior to the application stage, the chances of a successful hire are far greater.
Matt finished his presentation with some sterling advice: ensure there is consistency in your brand across all channels, put the human touch back into recruitment (people like to talk to people, not a brand), and finally those that are not utilising social media needed to act now! This doesn’t mean using every channel, experiment and see what works for your business.
Lucy Bunyan of Legal & General explained how the company has successfully turned its recruitment strategy around. Through measurement and communication across the whole business, and regularly measuring performance of internal and external resources, L& G has been far more able to see where they are making errors. Something that, through listening to the audience, was prevalent in many businesses.
Clearly there are great advantages to devising a value of hire model within a business, and assessing what works. We will be holding another seminar later in the year; it will certainly be interesting to see any new initiatives companies are taking between now and then.
What do you think? Does your business have a tendency to hire on costs rather than values? And what tools are you using to recruit with?
