Recruitment Advice to Help You Hire Successfully, the First Time

Posted March 7th, 2011  by Carroll King Schuller

The glut of job seekers on the market means that lots of qualified people are looking for work, and they’re willing to accept slightly less pay for their efforts. 

With hundreds of thousands of people competing for the same jobs, reviewing applications and deciding on the best candidates can be an overwhelming and confusing process.

Don’t Band-Aid a Problem by Hiring

Before hiring someone new, ask: “Is everyone doing their job?  Is everyone on staff placed in the right position?”  Try to figure out what you can shift or change before hiring.

Get a Process in Place

The problem for most business owners, particularly small business owners, is that they don’t have a hiring process in place and don’t take enough time to hire the right people.

Using your intuition to hire the right person is great – but not until that person has been properly vetted through a process that you’ve predetermined is the right one for your business.  If you have two candidates who are relatively equal in skills and experience, then certainly, use your gut instincts on which one is best.

Approaching the recruitment process in an organized, purposeful way will help you make the right decisions and bring the right players onto your team. 

Think about the immediate future of the organization.  Make a “skills-needed” list.

Risk it on Over-qualified Candidates

Don’t be afraid to take a risk on people who are over-qualified.  I have hired many successful, loyal contributors who were over-qualified but perfect for the position.

Approaching the recruitment process in an organized, purposeful way will help you make the right decisions and bring the right players onto your team. 

Sorting through Applications

Recruitment can be done in three’s…if you find 150 resumes, you will have 50 good people.  Out of this group, if you phone screen nine people you will have three or four you definitely want to interview.  To keep from being overwhelmed, start with the top ten candidates in the resume pile, phone screen nine, interview three or four and commit to second and third interviews on at least two of them.

You could make a separate folder—both electronically and physically—for job applicants.  Whenever an e-mail from a candidate comes in, categorize it and file it immediately.  Otherwise, it will likely get lost amidst the deluge of everything else. 

But the better way is to only handle each resume once time—know what talents and skills you’re looking for, look for and find that top talent, and ignore the rest.

Consider hiring a business advisor or coach to help with this process. 

When I work with businesses on recruitment, I help them:

• Layout a recruitment strategy and hiring process
• Review job descriptions to make sure they’re reasonable and accurate
• Sort through resumes and narrow down candidate selections to 10 or fewer with interaction analysis
• Figure out if there are any special interests or talents that might make a candidate more valuable than another (i.e combined talents for music and math somehow go together so an accountant who also plays an instrument might make for a better candidate)
• Learn how to interview properly reveal the strengths and weaknesses of the candidate based on the job description

When looking for Help in Recruiting, Seek an Expert

 Any consultant or coach you consider should readily offer you a record of his or her performance.

 My recruiting experience includes the following:

•  20 administrative positions, salaries up to $25K
• 300 hourly operations contributors, salaries up to $30K
• 45 entry-level supervisors, salaries up to $35K
• 45  individual contributors, salaries up to $40K
• 25 managerial positions, salaries up to $50K
• 15+ vice president positions, range of salaries
• 40+ technology individual contributors, range of salaries

One of the companies I recruited for – Citigroup – received awards for “best recruiting project” as well as “no employee turnover in 2 years.”

If you’re ready for a unique and fresh approach to hiring the best talent for your business, call 804.288.0099.

Related articles

• How Do Companies Recruit Employees? (thinkup.waldenu.edu)