10 tips to optimize your recruitment flow
Finding new talent in this day and age can be really challenging for any venture. From creating awareness about new opportunities to the perfect first day at the office. During my time searching for a new role I came across a wide variety of ways and technics that worked and some not so much. Are you looking for some inspiration on how to find the right trooper, this post is for you!
*disclaimer, this my view on the traditional HR flow, please do let me know what you think
TLDR;
- Keep applicants informed all the way and even after acceptation or rejection, every step of the way makes your flow more efficient.
- Remember there is just so much slack your applicant will take because he/she wants to work at your company. The entire journey reflects on your company, so make it a good one.
- Use your flow to reflect your company values, if your company is into unicorns. Use unicorns everywhere! Don’t hide what makes your company stands out, this will attract en detract the right talent.
Who am I?
My name is Eldon (Freelancer at Powow) and I have worked at major corporates, start-ups, and scale-up. I’m currently looking at open roles and sharing my experience.
The basics
There are many ways to victory, but generally, the road to hire is as follows :
A role draws your attention, may it be an ad, an article about the company or a referral.
Awareness
How do you reach the right people at the right place at the right time? There is no golden rule for every market (finding a plumber will be different than finding a marketing manager) do consider the following.
1. Start with your current team
Start with asking your current team how they found out about your company, you will be surprised about what you will find. Maybe they got referred, used your product/service or even read one of your many blog posts. This stuff seemed to be working in the past, why wouldn’t it work for future applicants?
We often overlook the simple insights that are right in front of us.
2. Don’t start spending money right away
If I would get a dollar for every ad or campaign I created on Linkedin or Facebook to acquire new applicants that generated zero to nothing … well, let’s say I wouldn’t be writing medium posts. Start with tools you have to your disposal today. Set up a referral program, write a blog post about something cool you did or enroll your current team into a company football competition. You might think of these things as stuff that doesn’t contribute to getting new talent, but don’t forget that competitor football teams will see how much fun your current team is having and are more likely to join your company if they see what they are missing out on. Spending money on acquiring talent is easy, but growth from within your current team will be way more effective for the long run than any dollar spends on marketing.
I love engineering blogs from companies like Uber & Airbnb
3. If you do spend money, spend it the right way
Acquisition the expensive way would be through all the paid channels like Facebook and Google. But did you know that a lot of companies main source of new talent is referral? (At Uber the number of drivers through other drivers is insane).
A lot of companies start there own paid campaigns or hire an expensive recruitment company, but why not pay your current team to get more likeminded people? This comes with pro’s and cons. 1. You don’t want it to let it become their main objective, 2. You don’t want them to hire, just for the sake of it. But consider comparing giving your current team a fee for every hire to the cost per acquisition through paid channels or a hiring company (especially when you look at the whole picture down the line of lifetime value).
4. Don’t over or undersell your open roles
If you create an image that does not reflect the actual role you are going to have issues down the line. When people join your company with the premise that they will be doing X, Y, and Z but that part was blown up compared to what they will actually be doing which is A, B, and C they will leave your company within 3 years. Now both X, Y, Z and A, B, C might be in your job description but be upfront about what this means and what it doesn’t mean.
You might think “running A/B tests” describes the task perfectly, but if this really means you need to do this together with a specialist and have shared ownership then you want to be upfront about that dynamic. In your applicant’s mind, he or she is already running the A/B show.
Vacancy site
Congrats! you have drawn the attention of a lot of potential applicants, now it’s time to get them to the right experience as fast as possible.
5. Reflect your culture
The first contact a company usually has with an applicant will focus on compliance with the culture of the company. So reflect this on your vacancy site. For example, if you are a company who values a specific kind of language (corporate or start-up) your site should be written in this language. Now don’t close the door on future applicants who might not align 100% with your values, but show them what your company is about and make them decide for themselves if this suits them or not.
Company culture is everything in the long run
6. Let potential talent apply for multiple roles
Role X is different at every other company. Where a product manager at a big FMCG company means launching new product campaigns, a product manager at a start-up could mean go-to-market strategies. If someone applies for one role doesn’t mean he/she could be better suited somewhere else. You don’t have the time to look at every individual application but stop putting talent in cubicles. Look at the talent and find a suited role, if there is none then inform them about the current state of your company but definitely save them somewhere for future roles (even if they just joined somewhere else).
Application
Application flows can take a while and that’s not a bad thing, as long as you communicate with your applicant.
7. Keep applicants up to date on what they can expect
An applicant is pumped about a new role and has hopefully spent a lot of time to fill in your application and is waiting with high anticipation on your response. The worst thing would be to not respond at all, but even if you don’t have a definite response yet, keep them posted.
8. The application doesn’t end at rejection
Traditional hiring flows usually end in 2 ways, either you get hired or you don’t. But as your company is expanding or your hiring flow ends with zero hires and you need to start over, this talent might come in handy. Building a database with applicants who applied for role X will be very useful because the role might change, the applicant might still be interested, the hiring manager might have changed. All these shifts that could impact what tomorrows hiring flow might look like. So don’t close that door just yet.
The first day
10. Preparation is everything
Do you remember your first day? That excitement, that awkward handshake round or that struggle to get all your stuff working within 24 hours? Relief a lot of stress on yourself and the applicant by really preparing the first day, the first week or even the first month. Consider sending out a couple of questions before he or she starts her first day. At one company I started, I got a welcome package and a quick survey before starting so I got to hit the road on my first day. What will you be doing on day 1? what do you need in order to do so? Who needs to be informed? etc. Don’t forget to make it a bit more fun for the applicant. They are full of excitement and things really get a lot easier when they know what they can expect and get a warm welcome. One company made everyone in the company write a welcome card and do a bit of homework on the new employee before the day they start.
Thank you for reading! If you have any questions or suggestions, just let me know! Love to hear your feedback. Just remember, I’m neither a writer nor a designer just a builder with bold ideas.
Cheers!
