When you’re working in recruitment, it can be hard to find top quality talent for your roles. Many people think recruitment is as simple as putting together a job description and waiting for the applications to roll in. However, though you might receive some applications, you’re likely to find that many of them are not up to the standard of the role you are recruiting for. Maybe your client has a lot of very specific requirements for candidates such as a specific qualification or amount of experience and every application falls just shy of that quota. It can be incredibly frustrating to find the right candidate but there are a few things you can do to help increase your chances of finding that perfect employee.
Find the right balance for your job description.
When writing a job description, you need to be sure that you find a good balance between being generic and being too specific. The job description needs to be written for the right candidate but you don’t want to scare off potentially great candidates by putting a laundry list of specific requirements at the outset. Determine which set of skills are absolutely necessary for the role and which are just ‘preferable’.
On the other hand, you don’t want a highly skilled candidate to see your job description and assume that you aren’t looking for a skilled individual and therefore that the job might be beneath them, so you do need to include at least a short list of requirements. Ask potential candidates what they think of the role after seeing the job description and use that feedback to amend it to appeal to a larger audience.
Always work proactively.
If you want perfect candidates, you can’t expect them to fall into your lap. You need to be constantly looking for them, keeping records of those candidates that impress you or have a specific set of qualifications that would be beneficial to a specific type of role. Once you have this database of perfect employees, you can leaf through it whenever a relevant role comes up and have several great potential employees at your fingertips.
Of course, you might find that some of these candidates are settled into jobs by the time you contact them, as is true of most great candidates, however they might be willing to hear you out if a great opportunity arises. It can’t ever hurt to have their contact details just in case.
Research your client’s USP.
Every business should have a USP (or Unique Selling Point) when it comes to employees. This could be specific perks given to employees such as lots of holiday time or expenses paid business trips. It’s important to identify these unique qualities for potential candidates as they are what will make them really notice the role. A great candidate who is already in work is most likely to be swayed by perks that the company offers that their current employer does not.
If you are recruiting for your own company, ask your existing employees what it is about working for the company they like the most, then share these things on social media and include them on your website so that any potential candidates could see them. If you’re recruiting for a client, ask them to provide you with all the information you need about what benefits they offer to employees or give examples of things other employees have said about the business that you can use when you call potential candidates to entice them to the role.
These are just three examples of things you can do to boost your candidate pool and find better quality candidates for your roles. Recruitment, in the end, is largely about your ability to sell a role and a company to potential employees and convince them that it is the right move for them and one that will benefit them. However, by implementing a few extra tactics to find a larger pool of candidates you are always increasing your odds of selling your role, much like a salesman increases his odds of selling a product by calling more customers or visiting more people door-to-door. As always, good luck!
