Posts Tagged ‘Hiring Tips’

« Older Entries

Hiring Managers: Be Empathetic To Applicants, Even Those You Don’t Hire

November 18th, 2014

When you are feeling rushed, harried and otherwise stressed out while performing your duties as a human resources professional, it’s not hard to see how your actions or even inaction can be interpreted as rudeness.

Many business professionals keep in mind the adage about being nice to the people you meet on your way up, because it’s always possible that one day you’ll be encountering them on your way down. This is not exactly the Golden Rule, but it’s a good rule of thumb when doing business.

It’s important to remember to be empathetic to all applicants who cross your threshold, even those you don’t wind up hiring.

Hurry up and Wait

Job applicants are finding themselves having to produce more material than they may be accustomed to during the tryout phase of the recruitment process. Then, after they generate a stack of documents in a brutally short timeframe, they are dismayed because the employer takes months to respond. It’s perfectly reasonable to request materials to get an idea of what the recruit has to offer, but you have to treat them with the same respect you would give a hired consultant or an existing member of your team.

Avoid asking potential employees to rush with unexpectedly fast turnaround times on sample materials, proposals, advises Anne Kreamer in a recent post at the Harvard Business Review. Instead, allocate a reasonable time for deliverables, and make the timing of such requests transparent from the beginning.

Be Honest from the Start

Have you ever prolonged an interview with an applicant because you knew he or she was just not going to be a good fit, but you didn’t have the courage to say so from the outset?

This is an example of being discourteous, noted a recent report by Roberta Matuson at Forbes. You don’t want unsuitable applicants to take up too much of your time and resources. Consider then, that applicants don’t want you to take up their time with a pointless interview just because you are afraid of hurting their feelings.

The Courtesy of a Reply

When you engage with a recruit over the course of weeks or months and then let things trail off without giving them a response about the status of the position they interviewed for, it can leave a sour taste in applicants’ mouths.

Set aside sufficient time in your schedule so you can give everyone a response, and customize your message instead of sending out boilerplate whenever possible.

If you think there is a chance that you may not have been as empathetic as you’d prefer when dealing with job applicants recently, you have the upper hand over other HR professionals in that you are sensitive to the issue and are interested in making a change. Putting yourself in other people’s shoes while evaluating whether they might be a good fit in your organization will make a big difference.

 

Comments Off on Hiring Managers: Be Empathetic To Applicants, Even Those You Don’t Hire »

Posted in Hiring, human resources

Tags:

The Pros and Cons of Hiring Old vs. Young Employees

October 3rd, 2014

old vs youngAs a busy hiring manager who needs to be able to quickly assess the capabilities of applicants and determine how well they might fit in your organization, how does the age of potential recruits figure into your decision making process?

Issues of talent, enthusiasm, expertise, wisdom, judgment and working habits all come into play as you consider each potential recruit. Of course, you don’t want to get into trouble by favoring one applicant over another based just on his or her apparent age. However, there are some pros and cons of hiring old versus young employees that you will want to keep in mind.

Young Blood and Exuberance

With youth comes excitement and exuberance, and enthusiastic new employees are revved up, looking for challenges and a chance to prove themselves, noted a recent post at Fast Company.

Younger workers typically are more accustomed to working with technology, having used it all their adult lives, often becoming adept during their formative youthful years. This means you may not have to spend as much time training them compared to more seasoned workers.

When you hire younger workers, you also have an opportunity mold them from the start instead of taking time to weed out the bad habits that some older employees develop.

However, younger workers may seem to be less vested overall with their jobs, wanting to leave once they have put in their hours for the day, compared to older workers who have more experience staying later to finish something because they are motivated by a sense of pride, according to a recent article posted at Entrepreneur.

Older, Wiser and Experienced

It’s very likely that older employees will behave more responsibly, having learned through hard work and experience what happens when you fail to show up on time, as well as the consequences of being careless when checking details on a project.

One negative aspect to hiring older workers is that they will often expect higher salaries than younger workers because of their experience and expertise. While the cost is often justified, your organization may prefer to hire greener workers for less and then spend more time in training.

The maturity and (hopefully) wisdom that comes with older workers is beneficial not just because of what they do themselves each day to boost your bottom line, but also the examples they can set for younger workers on your payroll, noted Entrepreneur. The magazine also cited the fact that older workers are typically better at communicating (and knowing when not to speak) because of their advanced understanding of office politics.

As long as you continue to be honest in your assessments of candidates and steer clear of discriminating against potential hires for being “too young” or “too old,” you can help build a better workforce at your organization when you pay attention to the pros and cons of hiring old versus young employees.

Comments Off on The Pros and Cons of Hiring Old vs. Young Employees »

Posted in Hiring, human resources

Tags:

Small Businesses Need to Think Big About Hiring

August 6th, 2014

How well is your small hirebusiness doing in recruiting new hires? Even as the economy improves and organizations start stepping up their hiring efforts, you may still find it difficult to attract qualified workers. In fact, more than half of companies still have open and unfilled positions due to a lack of available talent, according to a new report at the Democrat & Chronicle. You can remedy this problem by starting to think big about your hiring process.

For example, when was the last time you and your colleagues put yourself in the shoes of candidates to see why would they want to work at your company? During interviews, make a point of showcasing what makes your business stand out from the competition. You can be assured that the best and most talented recruits will be looking for companies that they match with in terms of values and culture.

You’ll also want to consider starting a program where candidates can shadow your employees for a day to get a better idea of your day-to-day operations and to see if there will be a good cultural fit.

Are you using social media to your benefit? It’s not enough for organizations to use Twitter, Facebook and other channels just to hype their accomplishments or address criticism. Reach out to new candidates through social channels, letting them get a sense of what it’s like to work at your business. When you find a promising candidate on LinkedIn, for example, your next step should be to check other social media for any inappropriate photos or comments to weed out undesirables.

And while you can target more younger people with social media, it’s important to remember the value in hiring older employees for their wisdom and experience, noted a recent post at Forbes. The added benefit is that you will get some talented mentors for the younger members of your team.

At the same time, you need to make sure you are offering fair compensation. Take advantage of the data at sites like PayScale and Salary before posting salary ranges in your upcoming want ads. While you’re at it, why not start offering cash incentives to your team members who refer successful new hires? Your current employees will serve as great brand ambassadors and their knowledge of your company culture will help you recruit applicants that will make a good fit.

Freelancing is another option your organization will want to give more consideration, according to a recent report at the Fox Small Business Center. You mainly benefit by saving money and having a more flexible workforce. What’s more, many freelancers have quite an entrepreneurial spirit that can do wonders for rejuvenating your business.

The bottom line is that if you want to continue growing as a company, you need to start thinking big about hiring. You’ll be rewarded with an improved workforce and an enhanced reputation among jobseekers.

Comments Off on Small Businesses Need to Think Big About Hiring »

Posted in corporate recruiting, hiring tools, human resources

Tags:

Measure Your Way Out of the Dark Ages of Hiring

June 30th, 2014

dark ages of hiringHow successful is your organization at building new teams? While there may be little shortage of qualified applicants, not everyone you see will necessarily wind up fitting in well with the other members of the group you’re assembling.

If you’re not defining and using metrics to improve the quality of your new hires, you might as well be operating out of the Dark Ages, when compared to your competitors who are more savvy about making data-driven decisions for recruitment and employee retention.

For some perspective: As a way to focus on quickly growing the user base at Internet start-up companies, the concept of “growth hacking” emerged a few years ago, according to a recent post by Nick Marsh at The Next Web.

Growth hacking, as Marsh describes it, emphasizes metrics. In the case of startups, the mission would be to reduce the cost of acquiring each new customer by using technology more aggressively in the process.

Examples of technology range from CRM software and applicant tracking applications to social networking and mobile devices able to access all required data via cloud service providers.

You can apply this philosophy of aggressively using technology and making measurements to your recruiting efforts, as well as toward seeing whether team members can bring their individual skill sets together more effectively as you build new teams.

Marsh notes that traditionally, companies would go through a lengthy recruitment process, hoping that candidates with poor interview skills but who would otherwise make a great fit could manage to get past the first round with HR. After the team has had time to meet with enough candidates, they work out whom to hire. It is only later, after work actually begins, that they can really determined if the new candidate is a good match. You should get better results when you add more metrics to the mix.

Begin Making Measurements

Build up a data set to help you figure out what is working when you hire exceptional candidates and what is not working so well. Startup firms are particularly adept at this, because they are typically used to doing A/B testing and analytics to measure products and other aspects of their business, so that they can quickly pivot their model if need be.

As you develop your measures of success and apply them to new candidates, your goal should be to continuously keep track of the measurements so you can steadily boost the quality of hires going forward. Because you will be using more data to make your hiring decisions, you should expect to see a decrease in the cost per hire for each new recruit.

If you and the other HR professionals at your organization haven’t been taking advantage of more data-driven techniques in your recruitment process, don’t you think it’s time to start giving it some more consideration? These days, with more information becoming available than ever before as well as being much easier to manipulate, analyze and share, it seems like a waste of a valuable resource if you ignore the benefits of defining measures of success and applying them to new hires.

Comments Off on Measure Your Way Out of the Dark Ages of Hiring »

Posted in Applicant Tracking System, corporate recruiting, data driven hiring, Hiring

Tags:

Are You Hiring The Top Minds of a New Generation?

May 9th, 2014

hiring millenialsIt’s only natural to want to hire the cream of the crop for your company, and this typically means that you will want to focus your recruitment efforts on the top college graduates every year to fill your ongoing workplace needs.

However, today’s top students are becoming increasingly aware of their value to businesses and are interested in better incentives and attention from potential employers. You may need to adjust your approach to ensure that you have a good shot at hiring the top minds of the new generation.

Give College Graduates Plenty of Feedback and Opportunities to Grow

By 2015, some 60% of all available job opportunities will require the skill and knowledge of just 20% of the applicant pool, noted Kathryn Dill in a recent piece at Forbes. She cited statistics from the “Class of 2014: Your Next Generation of Top Talent” survey from Achievers, a company that develops employee engagement applications.

The survey shows that graduates are searching for firms that will provide them with an opportunity to grow in their field, along with plenty of feedback and rewards.

To meet their needs, Dill recommends that hiring managers offer immediate evaluations on a regular basis. Millennial workers are typically staying in jobs for 18 months on average, which means it will do you no good to drag your heels when evaluating their progress and potential.

Increase Use of Social Media in Recruitment

More and more college students and graduates are coming to rely on social media such as Facebook and Twitter to navigate their job opportunities. You should increase your social presence both to advertise the virtues of your company and its culture and to meet potential candidates where they are spending more of their time—online.

A recent report by Srikanth An at ShoutMeLoud notes the importance of using LinkedIn when you are searching for the best available young talent.

A good step is to add every member of your staff to your company’s LinkedIn page to help you establish more second- and third-tier connections to potential recruits.

Be More Accepting of Eccentric and Creative Individuals

Managers may ask HR to find more workers who “think outside the box,” but the eccentric personalities of creative individuals sometimes prevent a recruiter from seeing the value they can bring, notes a recent report by Stephen Glasskeys at Forbes.

Glasskeys cited the examples of self-taught film auteurs Paul T. Anderson and Quentin Tarantino. Although these individuals might have unusual habits and appear unusual (unkempt hair and messy clothing), they have become experts in their field and deliver world-class results.

By embracing unusual people during the recruitment process, you improve the likelihood of finding the most talented minds available in your industry.

Comments Off on Are You Hiring The Top Minds of a New Generation? »

Posted in Careers, corporate recruiting, Hiring, human resources

Tags:

The Keys to Hiring for Startups

November 1st, 2013

tips for hiringWhen you start up your own company, it seems like there is a never-ending parade of tasks competing for your attention. One of the most important things you need to take care of is making sure you have a good system in place for hiring new employees, as that will dictate the pace and psychology of your company moving forward.

Finding the right people for the right job is crucial, but it’s also very important that each person will be a good fit in your startup, culturally speaking, according to a recent post at The Next Web. Here are four key aspects of the hiring process that startups will want to take into consideration as they bring in more people:

1. Evaluate Outside of the Office Environment

Any experienced human resources professional can tell you that the credentials and skills listed in a resume will only tell you part of the story about your job applicants. You need to take the time to really get to know prospective employees, to truly gauge their capabilities.

One useful technique is to move your applicants from the office to see how they will react. For example, request a lunch meeting or ask applicants to go out and grab a drink. Putting them at ease in a more social situation can encourage applicants to speak more freely than if you were conducting their initial interviews in a stuffy conference room or your office.

2. Utilize Technology to Pick Your Needles in a Haystack

Your HR team is likely being inundated with applications from people who are eager to join your startup. What is the best way to determine who are the most promising candidates to bring in to speak with your team?

For example, if you are hiring a programmer, you can help narrow down the applicants with an online coding test. Similar tests exist for other job categories. The important point here is that once you get some initial results, you can follow up with phone conversations or bring them in immediately for further discussions.

In today’s hiring environment, utilizing applicant tracking software should also be able to narrow this task down. Although humans are great at many things such as communication and picking up on subtleties, software can definitly help a hiring manager’s job by sifting through data and bringing top talent to the foreground.

3. Get Everyone Involved in Finding Applicants

Make it clear to everyone in your company that they are involved in the process of finding applicants. Employee referral programs are an excellent first step. Your team members likely know qualified individuals who could make a real difference.  In addition, a proper referral program will provide incentives to those referring team members which will make them feel involved in the entire hiring process.

Remember to also harness the power of social media when you have a need for job applicants. Potential employees may run across your startup via Facebook friends or by reading tweets from your employees.  Of course, Linkedin is always a great source of hiring potential.

4. Make Sure Prospects Fit in Well in Your Culture

It’s crucial that you preserve your company’s culture, especially when you are still in the startup phase.

Even if applicants are a good fit on paper and meet all your technical requirements to do the job, you still need to make sure that they will get along with the other members of the team. A good way to get an indication about whether they are a good cultural fit is by letting them spend some time with your team during interviews and the evaluation process.

By getting your employees involved in finding potential job prospects and taking the time to get to know each applicant, you will be well on your way toward ensuring the future success of your startup.

Comments Off on The Keys to Hiring for Startups »

Posted in applicant tracking software, employee referral program, Hiring, hiring tools

Tags:

Building a Company Customer Service Culture through Hiring

September 24th, 2013

customer service cultureIs your company doing everything possible to maximize the level of customer service you provide?

As a human resources professional, you have a lot to do with building your company’s customer service culture because of the decisions you make about whether to hire each job candidate. That’s the contention of a recent post by Micah Solomon at Forbes, who notes that there are two primary reasons that determine how your hiring decisions will affect customer service.

The first  is the fact each worker interacts with customers on a face-to-face basis, and the second point has to do with how your employees influence one another through peer pressure to give good (or bad) customer service.

Customer Service on the Front Lines

It may seem obvious on the face of it, but it’s important for you to keep in mind that every person you hire will have a big impact on the customer service your organization provides. The people on your front lines interact with customers the most, and each encounter can lead to increased customer loyalty or drive people to leave if they are ignored or treated rudely.

For example, the Forbes piece notes that at the Mayo Clinic, the needs of patients come first, and this attitude is reflected in the behavior of everyone in the organization, including the people who do the hiring and those who mentor new hires.

At Apple, fanatically devoted employees not only enjoy creating new products and showing other people how they work, they also are driven to protect intellectual property.

Southwest Airlines employees are well-known for going above and beyond the call of duty for their customers, including agents at the gate moving luggage and pilots assisting disabled people moving about in their wheelchairs. This is the result of a corporate culture that embraces a “can-do” attitude at every level of employee, and customers are taking notice.

In a hiring environment like Silicon Valleys that his chock full of competitive start ups – customer service for a new app or website can make the difference between failing and succeeding.  The first few hiring decisions will likely determine the ongoing customer service pathway for a start up.

Peer Pressure Affects Customer Service Too

Peer pressure is a major influence on the level of customer service an organization offers, the Forbes piece notes. Basically, if a new employee sees how well his fellow workers treat each customer, he will be more inclined to treat them well too, because of his desire to fit in with the other employees.

At Disneyland, people marvel at how janitors rush in to pick up trash nearly as soon as it hits the ground. This is not because Walt Disney would legendarily fire people on the spot for failing to pick up litter, but because so many old-timers modeled this behavior to their fellow workers.

When you see a successful employee doing something like leaping to pick up discarded popcorn boxes, you will be inclined to do the same when you see a guest drop trash. The same principle applies to providing excellent customer service. If those around you habitually go out of their way to help each customer, you will find yourself behaving the same way. On the other hand, if employees slack off when it comes to customer service, they could infect their colleagues with their negative attitude, and we all know how bad that can be for business.

The next time you are evaluating a group of candidates to fill a position, you should remember to consider the customer service ramifications of each new hire. The hiring choices you make will have a long-lasting effect on the quality of your organization’s customer service.

Comments Off on Building a Company Customer Service Culture through Hiring »

Posted in customer service, Hiring, human resources

Tags:

Is Your Candidate a Superbowl Contender or a Playoff Fluke?

August 6th, 2013

joe montana

According to an article on ScienceDaily.com, Don Moore, an associate professor at Berkeley-Haas, says that hiring managers often ignore the context of past performance. This can undermine the hiring process because past performance  provides context into what a candidate has truly done as opposed to seeing what they look like on paper.

Because football season is almost here, it’s easy to think about past performance in the context of the NFL.  Think about those teams with great records towards the end of the season.  Sure, a 10-3 record looks pretty on paper, but what teams did they play?  Did the majority of their opponents have losing records, or did they get through a gauntlet of tough teams?   Contextual differences like these make all the difference in the world between a true Superbowl contender and a team that will likely be eliminated in their first playoff game.

On a more academic level, a GPA is a common score used to determine whether a person is a good student or not. However, the GPA alone doesn’t say too much because it  depends on the leniency of the grading system. Students who have a lower GPA from a school with a stricter grading system may actually be the better student.

Professor Moore refers to this as correspondence bias. As a hiring manager, it’s important that inferences aren’t drawn based upon a disposition without looking into the surrounding circumstances first.

Looking at awards is another great example. If a hiring manager sees a large number of awards on a resume, it may help to boost the candidate to the top of the list. These awards may be superficial though. There may have only been a handful of people in the running for the award or a certain company may hand out more awards than another company. If another candidate works for a company where awards are never given, that candidate may not be considered – when in fact that is the person could be the better hire.

So how can a hiring manager check up on past performance? Watch the tape on your candidate.   Even if there isn’t actual video footage of them working,  do those reference checks thoroughly and talk to the person’s supervisors to see how they have actually handled difficult experiences.  How tough were there previous jobs and what sort of obstacles did they get through to succeed? Just as you would when making your NFL playoff picks, make sure you consider what your candidate has been put up against to get where they are.

 

Comments Off on Is Your Candidate a Superbowl Contender or a Playoff Fluke? »

Posted in Bad Hires, corporate recruiting, Hiring, human resources

Tags:

Acqui Hiring Gives Big Companies an Edge in Hiring Tech Talent

April 4th, 2013
Rather than attempting to poach young tech talent away from their startup companies, major companies are increasingly turning to a form of acquisition known as “acqui-hiring,” the New York Times reported earlier this month.
In acqui-hiring, a larger company acquires a company while hiring the key personnel that attracted attention to the start-up in the first place. For example, Yahoo bought Summly, a mobile news reader app with a five-person staff and no revenue for $30 million. Apple purchased WiFiSLAM, a company that focuses indoor Wi-Fi and has just a few employees for $20 million.
You may wonder why these tech giants are purchasing the smaller startups outright instead of just hiring the founders or engineers themselves. This is especially perplexing when the buyer shut down the original product and has the new hires begin working on new projects. What’s more, non-compete arrangements are difficult to enforce in California, so there should be no problem poaching top-notch talent instead of buying their entire company just to gain access to their expertise and ideas.
A few factors will explain this acqui-hiring phenomenon. Talented engineers will not want to appear that they are being disloyal to the startup, let alone to the angel investors that helped them get started in the first place. Accepting a buyout lets the engineers continue to work on their innovative ideas while allowing the founders, investors and employees to reap large rewards.
There are also some tax advantages when a tech giant resorts to acqui-hiring. If a young tech company founder accepts a signing bonus to work for a bigger firm, he has to pay more taxes than if he sold his start-up for the same amount as the bonus.
Increases in acqui-hiring serve to indicate just how competitive the tech hiring market is for promising young talent. Larger tech companies are increasingly willing to buy other companies just to acquire the human capital.
Small and medium-sized business won’t have the resources to acqui-hire. This means that in order to compete with larger players such as Facebook, Google and Yahoo, smaller firms need to utilize other innovative and efficient methods to acquired the best talent out there.
For example, companies need to leverage all aspects of social media in their job recruitment process—by relying not just on LinkedIn and Facebook, but also Twitter, YouTube and blogs to spread the word. Smaller companies also need to pay attention to “simple” details like how long it takes to fill out an online application for employment. If it takes 60 minutes to fill out the application rather than a more reasonable five minutes, for example, promising tech talent will likely go elsewhere to seek work.
As more and more large companies turn to acqui-hiring to expand the products and services they offer, small and medium-sized businesses will need to step up their game in terms of recruitment if they want to remain competitive in the technology sphere.

Acqui Hiring - Big vs SmallRather than attempting to poach young tech talent away from startup companies, the big players in the tech sphere are increasingly turning to a form of acquisition known as “acqui-hiring,” the New York Times reported earlier this month.

In acqui-hiring, a larger company acquires a smaller company while hiring the key personnel that attracted attention to the start-up in the first place. For example, Yahoo bought Summly, a mobile news reader app with a five-person staff and no revenue for $30 million. Apple purchased WiFiSLAM, a company that focuses indoor Wi-Fi and has just a few employees for $20 million.

You may wonder why these tech giants are purchasing the smaller startups outright instead of just hiring the founders or engineers themselves. This is especially perplexing when the buyers shut down the original product and have the new hires begin working on new projects. What’s more, non-compete arrangements are difficult to enforce in California, so there should be no problem poaching top-notch talent instead of buying their entire company just to gain access to their expertise and ideas.

A few factors explain the acqui-hiring phenomenon. Talented engineers will not want to appear that they are being disloyal to the startup, let alone to the angel investors that helped them get started in the first place. Accepting a buyout lets the engineers continue to work on their innovative ideas while allowing the founders, investors and employees to reap large rewards.

There are also some tax advantages when a tech giant resorts to acqui-hiring. If a young tech company founder accepts a signing bonus to work for a bigger firm, he has to pay more taxes than if he sold his start-up for the same amount as the bonus.

Increases in acqui-hiring serve to indicate just how competitive the tech hiring market is for promising young talent. Larger tech companies are increasingly willing to buy other companies just to acquire the human capital.

Small and medium-sized business won’t have the resources to acqui-hire though. This means that in order to compete for talent with larger players such as Facebook, Google and Yahoo, smaller tech firms need to utilize other innovative and efficient methods to discover and acquire the best talent out there.

For example, companies need to leverage all aspects of social media in their job recruitment process—by relying not just on LinkedIn and Facebook, but also Twitter, YouTube and blogs to spread the word. Smaller companies also need to pay attention to “simple” details like how long it takes to fill out an online application for employment. If it takes 60 minutes to fill out the application rather than a more reasonable five minutes, for example, promising tech talent will likely go elsewhere to seek work.  Essentially they need their hiring process to be smooth, efficient and inviting.

As more large companies turn to acqui-hiring to expand the products and services they offer, small and medium-sized businesses will need to step up their recruiting games  if they want to remain competitive in the technology sphere.

Comments Off on Acqui Hiring Gives Big Companies an Edge in Hiring Tech Talent »

Posted in Acqui Hiring, corporate recruiting, human resources, Recruiting Technology, Social Media Recruiting, social recruiting

Tags:

A Guide to Fast and Efficient Hiring Practices

March 4th, 2013

best hiring practicesDespite high unemployment rates, many HR professionals and recruiters are still finding it difficult to attract talented candidates to fill open positions at their firms. HireRight’s 2013 Employment Screening Benchmarking report notes that 52 percent of respondents said their biggest challenge is hiring and keeping talented employees. In fact, employers may actually be discouraging excellent candidates from applying, writes Kathleen Davis in an article about the report and its detailed infographic at Entrepreneur.com.


First impressions are important not only for job seekers but for employers. As many as 75 percent of job seekers told HireRight that a job posting’s look will influence whether they bother to apply, and that they spend less than half a minute examining any given help wanted notice.


To improve the situation, your business should make sure that job postings convey your brand—some 51 percent of applicants said that job notices don’t offer accurate branding messages. What’s more, giving your candidates a strong first impression of your company paves the way to them becoming customers, even if they don’t wind up working for you. The report notes that 32 percent of respondents said they were less likely to buy products from a business that failed to respond to their applications.


Even when your job notices do properly reflect your company’s brand, it’s important to keep them fresh. After a notice has been up for about 15 weeks, candidates tend to think the job is no good.


With people living out more of their lives on the Internet, social media is playing an increasingly important role in the job recruitment process. HireRight reminds employers not to settle for using Facebook and LinkedIn, but to also use blogs, Twitter and YouTube to get out the message.


When was the last time you tested how long it takes to fill out an online application for your firm? HireRight’s report shows that 60 percent of applications made online took at least 10 minutes, while an astonishing 8 percent took an hour. Given the state of recruitment software available now, your application should require five minutes or less for applicants to fill out.


The report also underscores the importance of courtesy. You may practice excellent customer service with your clients and customers, but how are you treating your job candidates? Providing a personal touch and treating each applicant with courtesy will prompt 90 percent of them to encourage their peers to come to work at your firm.


Companies with poor hiring processes stand to lose the best job candidates to their competitors, as well as deter potential customers. Prudent business owners will want to take a close look at their practices and try implementing some of the changes suggested by HireRight’s report.

Comments Off on A Guide to Fast and Efficient Hiring Practices »

Posted in Applicant Tracking System, corporate recruiting, Hiring, human resources, Social Media Recruiting

Tags: