It’s easy to take a short-sighted approach when you need to fill an open position. Recruiting for candidates and hiring the best one as quickly as possible becomes your priority, because a department in your company is operating without key personnel. Unfortunately, this approach only meets the short-term need and does nothing to create long-term recruiting and hiring strategies.
If your human resources department struggles in this area, it would be helpful for the team to change the way they think. Perhaps it’s time to focus on building a talent pipeline rather than finding one individual to meet a specific need.
Make an Honest Assessment
The first step towards creating better hiring strategies is to take stock of how your human resources department currently operates when it comes to acquiring new talent. The benefit of changing to a growth mindset is that you develop a larger pool of candidates to call on later when a new need arises.
Attracting qualified people to your talent pool requires you to specify the types of skills your company needs new employees to have, along with those they can learn on the job. Adding desirable personality traits allows you to narrow down the list of prospects even further. Taking the time to do this now allows your organization to move forward in a proactive manner when selecting future talent. It also makes it easier to hire someone based on their unique strengths as an individual rather than simply having the skills necessary for the job.
Remain Connected to Candidates Who Didn’t Receive a Job Offer
It’s common for a new hire to go through several rounds of interviews and pre-employment testing before receiving a job offer. When there is only one position open, not all qualified people make the cut. That doesn’t mean they wouldn’t be a good fit elsewhere in the organization. With the candidate’s permission, stay in touch with emails or text messages informing him or her of other opportunities as they arise. This saves you from having to start the recruitment process from scratch and can save your company considerable money as well.
Use Digital Resources to Keep a Record of Qualified Candidates
Recalling the name and specific details about a person you interviewed but who didn’t get the job can be difficult when several weeks or months have passed. One thing you can do to help jog your memory is offer candidates the opportunity to initially present themselves via video. You can then store the video using a few select keywords and find it easily when another position opens that could be a good fit for the previous candidate.
Using behavioral interviewing strategies and digital assessments is an excellent way to remove bias from the hiring equation. It also goes beyond skills testing to determine which candidates have the right temperament to fit into your organization. Be sure to store this information with easily searchable tags so you can reach out to second or third-place finishers with new job openings in the future.
Palmetto Payroll understands that no company can create the perfect recruiting and hiring strategies. Even so, we believe it’s possible to refine them to create a long-term outlook that serves your company better than continually responding to a short-term need.
