Recruiting? – how to get the best candidates!

Are you Recruiting? – how to get the best candidates!

I come out in a cold sweat when faced with the prospect of recruitment within the Marketing Communications industry I work in.

Across all skillsets finding the right individual can be both time consuming and frustrating particularly when dealing with such a diverse workforce this sector represents. So what best practice can you use to help?

• Use Social Media – LinkedIn, Twitter and Facebook all help and can be a free tool to get your requirements out there especially if you can get colleagues to share
• Ensure your website has a careers page and crucially it is up to date!
• Consider an apprenticeship or intern scheme so contact local colleges and schools
• Colleague recommendations

Paying for job adverts on LinkedIn or Ozzle can produce results, however, they will come at a cost depending on the options you choose.

Alternatively, you can let specialised recruitment agencies do all the work for an even higher cost but make sure you negotiate hard and get refund terms if the appointment does not work out – typically a sliding scale over three months.

Enhancing your brand is an important tool to help attract new talent ensuring that you portray your business as an exciting and rewarding place to work.

All of the above are areas that can help get the right team members onboard however what many organisations are missing, are actual proper job definitions, with proper behavioural definitions and proper skill and competence (and competency) definitions. This results in the job advertisement being poorly worded and therefore the possibility of incorrectly matched applicants being interviewed.

Ensure your focus is on what type of personality you want working in your organisation, their skills, ambition and ultimately the objective of the vacancy in a business perspective.

Blog written by Wes Dowding, Director, Technology and Operations, Romax