Tips for recruiting staff: How to recruit staff efficiently

• February 18, 2021
• Author: Lydia Hickson

Looking for advice on the best ways to recruit for your business?

There are many important factors to consider and actions to implement when looking for the very best candidates for your role and company.

So we’ve compiled our decade of experience in the graduate recruitment sector and created a complete guide to recruiting staff, and the top factors to consider when recruiting employees.

Whether you’re looking to recruit Finance staff, hire Marketers or recruit for Software roles, here’s how to hire top talent.

If you’re looking to hire for your business, get in touch and discover how we can add exceptional candidates to your teams this year.

 

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1. Think about what your reasons are for recruiting staff and build a solid hiring plan

 

The most important step in your recruitment process, is to analyse the way your business is currently operating and outline what your long-term business goals are. This will allow you to decide on the number of hires you need to make and type of roles to recruit for.

To hire cost-effectively and get the maximum ROI from your new hires, it’s important to first assess where any skills gaps lie with your current staff and outline your long-term targets across teams for the year.

If you’re wondering how to hire someone who will allow your business to achieve your targets and desired growth, here are some good questions to think about:

• What are your targets? - in terms of revenue and wider business targets
• What is your budget? - including both internal and external hiring costs
• How are you going to make sure your new hires stay? Creating an effective onboarding plan, and focusing on how to retain candidates are two key factors to consider.

If you need help creating a hiring plan for your business, check out our blog for our expert recruitment tips on how to build your hiring plan.

 

 

2. If you need to hire employees quickly, consider using an expert recruitment agency

 

If you need to hire for a role quickly, whether you need a candidate to start work on a project right away, you need to replace a candidate or you need to recruit multiple candidates for graduate schemes, using an expert recruitment agency is a great way to find the perfect candidates you’re looking for quickly and stress-free. You can consider the services of Global PEO to help with the hiirng process but also managing your employees after they are hired.

At Give A Grad A Go, we pride ourselves on being able to find the very best candidates for our clients, whatever their deadline. Our average time to fill a role is just 13 days (almost half the industry average) and we’ll send you an incredible shortlist of graduates within 48 hours, with no obligation and no upfront costs.

Interested in knowing more about our recruitment services, whether you’re recruiting for FinTech roles or looking for creative recruitment services, we can help match your business with outstanding candidates who will thrive in your role and grow with your company.

 

 

3. Have an engaging job description that showcases what’s on offer to candidates

 

• Describe your ideal candidate in detail

One of the most important ways of recruiting employees for your business, is to have an accurate, detailed and attractive job description. A job description is the first insight a candidate will have into your role and company life, so it’s crucial you’re using this to your full advantage.

In order to attract the right calibre of candidates to your vacancy, make sure to list the job responsibilities and requirements in as much detail. This will help a candidate decide if they are qualified for the position, and if it’s a position which they would like to hold.

List any required qualifications, number of years’ experience, specific software proficiency and what a day-to-day in this role involves.

Giving prospective candidates an in-depth view of the role and who is suitable to apply to the position, will help qualified and capable candidates to apply; saving you time and resources in your recruitment process.

One of the many ways we can help find top talent for your business, is writing a standout job-description that is optimised to target the specific candidates you’re looking to hire and promotes your role and company in the best way.

 

• Excite candidates about your opportunity and list what candidates will gain from your role

Another crucial element of a successful job description and one of the best ways to recruit top talent, is to include all the employee benefits of the job, list tangible reasons why a candidate should apply to your role over others.

A recent survey we conducted with graduates highlighted that graduates rank career progression and training opportunities higher than starting salary.

Listing the starting salary as the only benefit of your role, isn’t going to help you recruit the best talent and attract candidates who are looking for opportunities to progress in their career and grow with a company.

To build a strong employee value proposition, include a ‘Benefits of the job’ section in your job description, and include the range of career incentives on offer to candidates. You want to excite candidates about your opportunity and see them determined to secure your role.

Here are some of the top employee incentives to include:

 

• A competitive starting salary. Make sure your starting salaries are all competitive and within the industry average. If you’re unsure what starting salary to list for your role, visit our Graduate Employment Statistics Archive for the average salaries for a range of industries. In your salary details be sure to also include an additional incentives such as bonuses, commission and the OTE.

 

• Training opportunities – Can you offer candidates the opportunity to take part in any courses? Do you offer any internal training? Will candidates gain qualifications? Today’s graduates are looking for opportunities where they can develop their skillset and progress in their career. So if you’re not currently offering any training programmes and your budget permits, consider offering this.

 

• Benefit packages – Be sure to also include any other types of benefits on offer, from flexible working patterns, early finishes, well-being packages, holiday allowance, pension schemes and volunteering opportunities.

 

• Work environment and company culture – Giving candidates an insight into your company culture is key to hiring the right candidate. Whilst a candidate may have all the necessary skills and qualifications for your role, if they won’t enjoy or thrive in your company and its ways or working, this could result in premature departures. Describe the environment of your company, is it collaborative, how do teams interact? Are there regular team socials and events? This is a great way to promote your opportunity, but also to let candidates decide if it’s an environment suited to them.

 

• Any other exciting aspects of the role - Mention any projects candidates will work on and autonomous working opportunities. Many candidates are looking for roles where they can take responsibility and manage a project, so be sure to mention if this is an option with your role. For example if you’re hiring for a PR role, mention if the candidate will be on any exciting client accounts, or if you’re recruiting technology jobs, mention any software candidates will be using and projects they will be working on.

 

For further advice on recruiting candidates, visit out blog for more ways to write a job description that will attract the best candidates. Hiring an Account Manager? We’ve also put together a complete guide to writing a Sales Account Manager job description.

 

 

4. Utilise your company’s network

 

Another of the best practices for recruiting top talent, and a great way to cut the cost of recruiting staff, is to make use of your company’s network.

Your company’s social media platforms are a great way to gain exposure for your vacancy and are a fantastic form of free advertising! Promote the role you’re hiring for on LinkedIn, and across your other social media channels and ask all your employees to share the posts.

Your employees will most likely have useful connections within your industry and sharing will help your post be seen by a wide network.

Wondering how to use social media for recruiting employees? Our top tip is to focus your social media promotion on LinkedIn. LinkedIn is a powerful tool for hiring, with the ability to have your post seen by thousands, so concentrate your role promotion on this platform.

It’s also a good idea to ensure your employees LinkedIn profiles are in line with your company branding and are as slick as possible before they begin sharing your opportunities.

For tips on how to create a professional and standout LinkedIn profile, direct your employees to our top LinkedIn profile tips blog.

 

 

5. Encourage collaborative hiring

 

Another way to reduce the cost of your recruitment process, is to ask your current employees to put forward applicants that they think would be suited for the role. A great way to champion this internal recruitment is to offer an incentive scheme (such as an amount of money) if their recommendation is placed in the company.

Emphasize this incentive and get your employees eager to find the perfect candidate for this role before any of their colleagues. This will help drive your recruitment process forward and help find staff who are trusted by other members of your team.  

As well as speeding up your recruitment process, asking for your employees’ input is another important part of hiring the right person for the job. Listening to your team’s opinions and thoughts of a candidate can provide new insights, help identify any subconscious biases and also show you value your employee’s opinion.

 

6. Ensure your recruitment process is inclusive

 

Another important recruiting staff process you should be following and championing as a company, is ensuring your have a diverse and inclusive recruitment program.

Having a diverse and inclusive team has a myriad of benefits to your employees and as a company. As well as being a responsible and fair employer, diverse teams can boost employee engagement, increase confidence in your staff, and see you have a broader spectrum of creativity, skills and experience in your teams.

When recruiting staff, it’s crucial you’re working to eradicate any unconscious bias in your processes and ensure you’re recruiting solely on a candidate’s skills and experience and not due to any other factor.

Earlier this year we decided to send all CVs blank to our employers with no name, helping to reduce discrimination at CV application stage. We are also ensuring all our new employees receive Diversity and Inclusion training, to help ensure our recruitment process is as fair as possible.

It’s also beneficial to include a company diversity and inclusion statement on your job descriptions, to show candidates you are a responsible employer and that when applying applicants will be treated fairly in your recruitment process. Here’s our example statement:

“Give A Grad a Go is committed to being an equal opportunity employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration regardless of age, gender, ethnicity, sexual orientation, faith, disability or other. We are continually finding ways to improve the way we work, read our Diversity and Inclusion promise for more information about this."

If you're wondering why diversity is important in selecting and recruiting? Visit our blog for an insightful breakdown on what is diversity in the workplace and why it is so important.

 

 

7. Make the most of the interview process

 

If you’re wondering how to hire employees and looking for recruiting staff tips, one our best pieces of advice is to make sure you’re utilising the interview process as much as possible.

Avoid asking general questions, and instead ask thought-provoking and stimulating questions which will allow you to clearly see which candidates genuinely want to work for your company, and those who have the perfect skillset to thrive in your role.

If you’re looking for top interview questions to ask candidates, check out our blog, or watch our YouTube video:

Tip: change the playback speed in the settings at the bottom right corner, to suit your learning requirements. Subscribe to our YouTube channel for more great videos!

If you want to add valuable content to your site, you can embed any of our videos and playlists for free! Get in touch at marketingteam@giveagradago.com and we’ll send across the code for you to use.

 

Another essential part of the interview process, is making sure you have the right number of interview rounds, and tasks set to gather all the information you need and to clearly see candidates abilities.

For example, if you’re hiring a Designer, it’s important to ask candidates for a portfolio of their previous work, or if you’re hiring a Software Engineer, it’s a good idea to set coding tasks for candidates to complete.

If you’re unsure what tasks to set during your interviews and how many rounds to set, visit our blog for important interview practices you should be following, and about how to interview someone for a job.

As part of our tailored recruitment process, we’re always sharing our expert advice with our clients on the best tasks to set candidates, from written tasks, portfolios to assessment centres – we’re here to help you decide on the best tests to set and then work closely with you to help organise each stage of the recruitment process.

 

 

8. Be realistic and transparent to candidates about timings

 

One of the top methods of recruiting staff, is to have clear and realistic timelines in place. It’s important to communicate to candidates your expectations about timing from the start, making sure to let candidates know how much of their time you will likely require and when you plan to make a hiring decision.

This will allow candidates to plan and organise their job search accordingly, and also ensure they have a positive experience throughout your hiring process, which may further encourage them to accept your job offer and share your company with their network.

If your hiring process requires a test or a set task make sure to clearly communicate timeframes for these, and give candidates enough time to complete so they’re not blindsides or unable to complete it to their best abilities in the given time.

Timings are key when it comes to recruitment. So it’s important to be honest and transparent - you don’t want great candidates to accept an offer at another company or pull out of your hiring process because you’ve taken too long to provide feedback or proceed with the next steps.

 

 

9. Recognise the importance of employee referrals

 

One of our top recruiting tips, is to recognise the importance of having a well-structured and effective onboarding process in place. Past employees can be an exceptional source of referrals to new candidates and act as free ambassadors for your company.

Key to your departing employees having a positive view of your company and message to share with their network, is having a great offboarding plan in place.

If you haven’t already, make sure your business has an offboarding process in place which allows you to effectively transfer important information and training to your new hires, and one which allows your departing staff members to leave on the best terms.

If you need help, or support with your offboarding process, we’ve put together our complete guide to creating an employee offboarding process for your business.

 

 

10. Wondering how to hire employees online?

 

Over the past year recruitment has adapted to the online world, and more and more companies are hiring employees for fully remote positions. If you’re looking to hire remote candidates, we have some excellent services to help with your remote hiring needs.

If you’re looking to hire remote employees but don’t want to commit to a permanent hire, you might be interested in our temp-to-perm hiring solutions.

Our short 1 - 6 month trial period allows you to start working with people now, reduce the strain on teams and then have a much better understanding of people's capabilities for when the business has the capacity to take them on permanently.

We are also offering 50% discount on your next hire when you refer us to a company that we successfully place with.

For more of our online recruiting services, visit our blog for the ways we can help you with remote hiring.

 

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If you’re looking to take your business to new heights this year and achieve your short-term and long-term business goals, it’s essential you’re hiring qualified and suited candidates for your roles.

If you’re wondering how to hire staff, implement out step by step guide, or get in touch and discover why we’re the UK’s leading graduate recruitment agency.

• February 18, 2021
• Author: Lydia Hickson