Recruiting is a bit like fishing…the process is often costly, time consuming and sometimes fails to result in a fish for tea (or results in you hooking an eel when you wanted snapper).
For the candidate, often the fishermen is using the wrong bait or when they do bite they wish they hadn’t because the next step is the frying pan!
Unless you are an expert, when you want to hook a good fish you go out with a mate who knows where the best spots are and who can give you a bit of advice to improve your chances of success. Conversely when recruiting, many think they can land the best snapper, even when they have no idea where to fish!
My other half was recruiting recently and despite my encouragement to use a specialist agency, he decided to go it alone on the basis of cost and “how hard can it be?” Of course, I insisted that he did a proper job of it, and afterwards he commented how much time it took to get it right. I am sure that if he multiplied the hours taken by his charge out rate, it would have been cheaper to get some expert help. Of course, he did most of the process in the evenings and on weekends, which would have been time that he could have spent fishing…well, if he did that sort of thing!
So how do you increase your chances of success?
- Know what you want to catch – be clear about your requirements – make sure you have a meaningful and measurable job clearly documented in a job description
- Fish in the right places – use specialists who can ensure your adverts get seen by the right people and who will help you word them in such a way as to stop eels from biting. They can also help you ensure that you ask the right (and often the difficult ) questions and that you deal with the ones you throw back fairly, professionally and legally
- Get advice on what bait to use – the money, the job and the Terms & Conditions have to be reasonable (and even attractive, particularly if you want to catch a rare fish). Then make sure the fish gets what it was expecting – don’t lure your fish in with the promise of a nice juicy squid and then deliver a horrid plastic imposter.
- Make sure your fish is “legal” – check their right to work, their criminal history, their sickness and ACC records, check they are healthy and get detailed references about previous work history
- Know what you might be about to catch – using testing as part of your recruitment process to make sure that your fish is what is what it appears to be. You may even consider giving the person an “on job assessment” as part of the selection process
- Invest your money in getting the right support –you can waste a lot of time trying to make something edible out of that nasty eel you caught!
GrowHR can help you develop your structure, provide clarity around what your needs are, help you decide what remuneration is correct and what terms and conditions are appropriate and advise you on the support you may need to get your processes right. As we do not provide recruitment agency or testing support, we have strategic alliances with the best in the business and we recommend Red Consulting Group for recruitment support and People Central for candidate testing and assessment.
Contact us to understand how Grow Human Resources and our alliance partners can assist you in landing the best fish! Next time we’ll talk about what to do when your fish has been landed!