Recruitment is one of the most important parts of growing a business. It gives you more resources, frees up your time as the owner and helps build a strong, stable business. But it’s also one of the most intensive, complicated things you can do, and getting it wrong can cause all sorts of problems for your business. That’s why it’s important to have a robust recruitment process in place – before you start hiring anyone. Today, we have 4 tips to help you start building that process and take the next step towards hiring your new staff.
Understand What You Need
So you’ve decided you need a new employee. Great! But what do you need them to do? Many business owners will get to the point of realising they need another pair of hands in the business, and launch straight into hiring someone. The result is often that they are looking for a clone of themselves, someone who can do a bit of everything. But in reality, this almost never works. Instead, you need to sit down and work out which areas of your business you need most support with, and focus your recruitment on that area. So if you know your marketing is suffering because you’re so busy delivering, you should hire a marketing manager. If you’re struggling to deliver all the work that comes in, you need someone with the skills to deliver your product or service. Understanding what you need is the foundation for a robust recruitment process.
DIY Or Use An Expert?
This is a big question, and one a lot of business owners are a bit scared of. Do I try to recruit this role in-house, or do I hire an agency to do it for me? Unfortunately, there’s no easy answer to this – it’s all down to how confident you are in your recruitment skills, and how much time you have to dedicate to it. Remember, you need to reach out and attract a pool of candidates to consider and interview, which can be an expensive and time-consuming process. But many business owners prefer this personal, hands-on approach. On the other hand, an external recruitment agency often has a pool of candidates they can draw from right away, as well as spreading the word further than you could, to new networks. If you’ve never recruited before, this is a good way to go to ensure you get the best results.
Hone Your Interview Skills
There are all sorts of horror stories out there about bad interviews, awful interview questions and interviewers who just don’t know what they’re doing. This is not only bad for your company image, but it could also impact your ability to hire the right talent. So if you’ve never interviewed anyone before (or even if you have), spend some time preparing your interview process. Plan out exactly how the interview will be structured, what areas you want to cover and any specific questions you want to ask. Then, practice it. Do mock interviews with friends, family members, even the bathroom mirror. Saying your questions out loud will give you an idea of how long the interview will run and the feel of the questions, as well as highlighting if you’ve asked something ridiculous (which is easier than you think). All of this means you’re prepared to interview candidates, and will get all the information you need.
Don’t Forget About Onboarding
The recruitment process doesn’t end at the offer. This is a common mistake a lot of business owners make – they secure a new hire, they start as planned, and then they leave them to it. But if you want to keep the talent you’ve worked so hard to hire, you need to invest in good onboarding and induction. This means providing everything they need on day 1, from pencils to their set-up computer, pairing the new hire up with a mentor, establishing expectations and supporting them through their first 100 days with your company. If you put some time and effort into your onboarding process, your hires are 80% more likely to stay with you for up to 3 years.
At Karen HRM, we offer business owners support and advice during all stages of the recruitment process, and we can manage this for them from beginning to end. We can help you understand what you need from a new hire, the best way to find them, and the best way to keep them afterwards. If you’d like to know more about building a robust recruitment process, just get in touch with us today.