Recruitment; How to find a superstar!

Recruiting a new team member can be a time consuming and costly exercise with no guarantee of success. In this week’s blog, we give our top tips on recruiting a superstar.

The first step in any recruitment post is to spend time thinking about the role you are recruiting for. Often this step is missed and it is the most common reason why you might get the wrong people applying or select the wrong person at the interview. Every role you recruit for must have an up to date job description. This is key as it allows you to clearly communicate with prospective employees what the role entails, preventing early attrition due to individuals feeling the role was different to what they applied for. The job description also gives you a clear outline of what you are looking for, helping you remain fair and objective.

Even if you are recruiting for a replacement before you advertise the role spend time reviewing and reflecting on what you might need to change, jobs do evolve over time and therefore so should job descriptions.

Ensure that when you are considering the skills or person specification you are being fair and none discriminatory. Avoid including non-relevant qualifications or a set number of years experience (these are likely to be discriminatory), instead focus on the qualities you are looking for. Don’t automatically discount individuals who do not have experience, there are some fantastic graduates or school leavers looking for an opportunity, consider if (with training) this could be an option for you.

Where to Advertise

Once you have a clear picture of the role you are recruiting for, you need to think about where you will advertise. There are many recruitment agencies out there but these can be expensive to use so think about what benefit this will bring you like access to a specialist pool of candidates for example. There are other places to advertise your role including a range of online platforms, most of which offer a pay as you go option allowing you to advertise one role. This can be very cost effective, although you may get a lot of applicants to sift through (although if you have a clear CV sift cover sheet that doesn’t have to be as time-consuming as it sounds).

Selection

Before you start the process of sifting CVs and selecting candidates for the interview it is important to create a recruitment pack. This ensures you make a fair decision and keeps you consistent in your approach. Perhaps most importantly, if you were to be accused of discrimination by a candidate it is also your evidence that you based your decisions on fair facts. A good pack includes:

• A CV cover sheet. Aligned with the job description this is a list of the key things you are looking for and might include relevant qualifications and past experience. The first sift allows you to take out everyone who doesn’t meet the requirements. If you still need to shortlist then you can look more carefully at these factors and fairly select the person.
• An Assessment Pack. Create a set of interview questions you will ask every candidate including a scoring matrix. Remember you are not comparing candidates to each other, you are focusing on comparing them to the job description. With a good scoring system, you can clearly see the strongest candidate against this. Interview questions should be focused on what the candidates have done not what they might do in a given situation.
• Consider what other elements to include that are appropriate to the role, for example, a role play, work simulation or group exercise. For every element of the process, you need to include a scoring matrix so you are clear what you are looking for and can assess the candidates against this.

Once you have assessed your candidates you should have a clear decision based on your scoring. It is important to provide (or offer to provide) feedback to all candidates and that includes your successful candidate (although you would likely provide this when they start with you.

Think about how you will onboard your new employee and make them feel part of the team. How can you help them to understand your business, your culture and their role?

If you need any support with interviewing, developing assessment packs or helping your new employee settle in please contact us on 01325 288299 (option 2). We can also provide 121 or group training to your managers to help them develop interviewing skills and build your management capability in-house.