How to Hire in a Competitive Market: Tips & Advice
We know what’s been on everyone’s mind over the past few months: hiring amid economic uncertainty and the Great Resignation.
Many people are leaving their jobs, and the war for talent is fierce.
To find talent fast, you need to implement a process that allows you to stand out to candidates. Let’s take a deeper look at some tips you can use to hire talent in a competitive market.
How to Find & Hire the Best Candidates
There are many ways to find the talent for an open position, including being open to a broader candidate pool, improving your screening process and leveraging references to validate your hires.
Be open to a broader candidate pool
We all know there is no such thing as a ‘perfect candidate.’ By limiting yourself to only accepting candidates with every requirement you listed in the job description, you’re missing out on great potential candidates.
To gain more talent in the hiring process, be open to candidates with around 70% of the requirements you’re looking to hire. You’ll find more people to interview for the role and can invest in a candidate’s growth if they join your team.
Improve your screening process with candidates
Once you find your candidates, you need to start qualifying and screening them to help narrow down the individuals who make it to the next round of hiring.
Analyzing resumes may seem simple, but there’s a lot to look for when reviewing them. Resumes that are well-organized, updated, and include education and credentials are always a good sign.
In the screening process, you can verify where skills and software knowledge were utilized. Even more importantly, the review process can help you identify gaps in a candidate’s resume.
Contact references to to validate good candidates
References are an effective way to screen a candidate since you’re hearing from people they’ve worked with at previous jobs. We recommend verifying credibility with at least two former supervisors to get a good read on whether a candidate will be a good fit at your company.
Also, ensure the candidate informs references that you’ll be calling so they aren’t blindsided.
Background checks, drug screens, and verifying credentials are also useful in the candidate screening process. These screenings can help either confirm that you have a candidate ready to move forward in the interview process or uncover qualities in candidates that could be detrimental to your business.
How to Best Prepare with Interviews
Interviews can make or break a candidate’s hiring experience. Preparing before the interview is essential, even if you’re the interviewer.
Before the interview, prepare specific questions you want to ask the candidate. Start with conversational icebreakers to kick off an interview and help ease a nervous candidate. After, add questions specific to the role and avoid having too many generic questions in the interview.
Don’t forget that the candidate is also interviewing you to see if your organization would be a good fit. Here are some topics you can prepare to talk about to sell your organization to a candidate: company culture, job expectations, work-life balance, career path at your organization, and your experience working at your company and managing a team.
Most importantly, remember to listen. If you fail to actively listen during an interview, you could miss important details when a candidate answers a question. We recommend having the candidate lead the interview to avoid missing vital information.
Seal the Deal with the Right Interview Techniques
The interviewing portion of the hiring process allows you to let the candidate know what makes your organization unique and how your role is competitive compared to others in the job market. Not all interviewing methods are created equal. It’s crucial to pick the one that best fits the needs of where you are in the interview process.
Phone interviews generally happen before a face-to-face interview. In this type of interview, you typically go through day-to-day duties and ask about their interest in the position, pay expectations, and their availability.
Virtual interviews, such as Microsoft Teams, Skype, or Zoom, are generally the next step after a phone interview. This type of interview is your chance to ask the candidate more questions about their role and expertise.
During in-person interviews, the candidate can gain a better understanding of the office culture and allow them to meet the team, supervisors, and managers in one setting.
Hiring Can Be Overwhelming: We Can Help
Ultimately, there are a lot of factors that play into hiring top talent to fill vacancies. We understand that the time it takes to hire talent can take away from your team’s long-term initiatives. That’s where we step in. Addison Group has more than 20 years of experience filling roles with top-tier candidates in multiple industries that saves you time so you can focus on your business.
