Finding and Retaining Talent
- 11 Jul 2019
- Articles
This article about recruitment strategies explains how.
Look beyond the CV
Choosing a good candidate who will fit your company culture is not as simple as looking over a CV and matching skill sets. A good candidate is one with an approach to work and personality fitting to their work environment. It is far more important to consider your candidates alignment to your company’s culture as opposed to simply their suitability to the tasks at hand.
When you interview a candidate, do you take the time to fully visualize this person in the role they must fill, interacting with co-workers and producing results? If you can’t visualize this person fitting their role perfectly, it doesn’t matter what their skill set might be –– they won’t be an asset to your company.
Set realistic expectations
It is easy to make a job seem like the land of “milk and honey” during an interview and forget to mention all the serious challenges that come with the position. It would be better to provide clear understanding of the difficulties and less-than-pleasant aspects of a position to help a candidate formulate a realistic view of the job. There is nothing worse than arriving to your first day in a new position and finding that the interview provided no clue on what the role truly demands. This will make any self-respecting talent disappear into the blue.
Never select the Best of the Worst
Many industries are suffering from a shortage of needed skills, it can be very difficult to attract the talent you are looking for in your company. But, this should not be a reason to accept second-rate solutions, such as the “best of the worst” options. Selecting from among these options will only lead to regret later.
If you are finding it hard to fill a needed role, take a moment to step back and reconsider your approach. If your search were reorganized and included additional resources such as talent partners, your net could be cast a little further.
Have a clear onboarding process
Now you have found your “heartthrob” candidate, that professional containing all the skills and work culture to boot and even better they have accepted your proposition –– it’s a dream come true. But, before you heave a sigh of relief and considered the matter concluded, the onboarding process has not been completed.
To make sure this talent stays committed to your company and its goals you must have a well-defined onboarding process. This will introduce your new-comer to the fray with the full support and guidance a newcomer needs. Without this, isolation can make small confusions seem like insurmountable obstacles and can cause your budding talent to look for better opportunities elsewhere.
Ask for (and listen to) feedback
If you are looking to keep your new hires engaged, then you must keep them talking and communicating till they feel comfortable in their position. Constant open communication should be an essential part of your onboarding process. This is the key to success.
Finally, be sure to be using this process as an opportunity to learn all you can about your process from new hires. Use this information to improve your process and clear away the most obvious obstacles to a smooth transition into the company culture.
