5 New Year’s Resolutions To Boost Your Recruitment Success in 2021!
6 Jan 2021
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2020 was a difficult year for most, but it also brought to the surface lots of new ideas and a chance for companies to reset plans, processes, and procedures.
Whilst most companies will have had less vacancies in 2020, there was a noticeable increase of vacancies in the last quarter of the year as companies gained the confidence again to recruit, presumably due to the positive vaccine news, Brexit conclusion, built up demand of work orders, government initiatives and also having had significant time to adapt to the new ways of working.
Furthermore, off the back of this and with most companies already overstretched and streamlined from previous staff cuts and recruitment freezes we are expecting 2021 to bring a high volume of vacancies to the job market.
Concerningly though we are still expecting there to be skill shortages for more niche jobs / industries, made further difficult by the expected increase in demand and competition for top talent.
With that in mind a great way to start the new year is to set yourself some New Years Resolutions to help you prepare and boost your recruitment success in 2021!
Please see below some ideas to help you prepare and make recruitment easier this year.
- “I’ll make more time to provide regular content to help strengthen our company’s employer branding”.
Making the effort to provide regular company content updates and sharing business success and stories on social media will help get your company story heard, strengthening not only your reputation to clients but also highlighting more awareness of your employer brand to potential new staff.
This will go a long way in helping your company stand out against competition when potential candidates are doing their research before deciding whether to apply or when preparing for an interview.
Plus, if you have not done it already now is the time to start building your employer brand by asking for more current staff reviews on Linkedin and Google Reviews!
- “I’ll use Technology where possible to speed up the recruitment process”.
Recruitment is a race, utilising the technology available to speed up your process will help ensure you do not miss out on top talent.
If you don’t already even minor changes such as ensuring offers can be sent out by email rather than just post and conducting online interviews where possible, even if just in the earlier 1st stage screening rounds will make a massive difference in your companies time saving and competitiveness in being quick to act.
You could also consider moving aspects of the onboarding process online, such as elements of staff inductions, to help get employees ready and started sooner rather than being delayed until HR are in the office.
Same goes for promoting your business as an employer, don’t forget to look for innovative ways to promote your business such as the use of video to portray your company insights, be it employee videos, virtual tours of your office / team or even a walk through of your example projects / case studies.
- “I’ll endeavour to uphold a positive candidate experience”.
How an employer deals with candidates during the recruitment process can make or breaks its reputation in the marketplace.
Endeavouring to uphold high standards of etiquette and empathy for candidates both successful and unsuccessful throughout the process will play a big part in building a good employer brand for the future.
The way you do one thing, can be perceived the way you do everything, so boosting your candidate experience will show a positive sign of an employer looking to carry on as they have started.
This can be from more obvious points such as providing prompt cv and interview feedback, to finding ways to streamline your recruitment process, doing the due diligence to get the offer right first time or even investing more time to improve your skills as an interviewer.
- “I’ll seek creative ways to find solutions for hard to fill vacancies”.
We have all been there, you have a vacancy that has gone weeks and maybe even months without being filled and at what cost to the progress of your business not to mention your time on wasted interviews.
If a vacancy lacks the urgency that it can last months or run on indefinitely without being filled, surely if there is even a real need for the vacancy has got to be questioned?
Like most tasks treat recruitment the same, set a timescale target for your recruitment and find ways to get it done, delaying recruitment can often have untold costs on your time and progression of a business in the long term.
Solutions to consider could include keeping an open mind on the following:
Flexibility on Job Specifications.
With Brexit making skill shortages worse in industries with already identified skill gaps, is now the time to look for creative ways to fill your vacancies, this could simply be by widening the flexibility of certain job spec requirements (for example it’s worth considering how quickly could someone with say the core job duties experience but slightly different project sectors pick up the new niche and if you have concerns perhaps this could be addressed by initially employing them freelance or by agreeing and providing an enhanced training programme to get them up to speed).
Hire for Attitude and Train for Skills
It may also be worth looking for opportunities to hire for attitude rather than just the perfect cv. Quite often doing this, thereby finding someone who crucially has the best motivation for the job will result in lower staff turnover and better job offer to acceptance success.
Surely 70% of the skills and a great attitude has better long-term potential of being a star candidate than 90% skills and a poor to average attitude / work ethic.
The perfect cv is not always the best candidate for the long term.
Expand your search for top talent by utilising remote workers
Finally, the use of technology that was highlighted to the world in 2020 and in turn a wider acceptance of the potential for remote working in the long term has also provided a great opportunity for you to widen your candidate talent pools by expanding on locations for roles that are applicable, allowing you to seek out the best top talent regardless of whether they are based near your office / HQ.
Not to mention a lot of candidates would also consider less pay for the advantage of saving on a commute and the flexibility of better work life balance. So not only can more candidate options be considered but also potentially at less cost.
- “I will plan for current staff welfare and retention”.
Investing more time upfront in the wellbeing of your staff will reduce the number of employees leaving your business in the first place and thereby reducing your recruitment needs.
With the increase of staff working less in the office at present, its much easier for them to feel less connected with the employer / company.
Not only does this reduce long term commitment to an employer but also can have knock on consequences with regards to teamwork and mental health which can reduce productivity.
So, its important more than ever to plan and make a conscious effort to find ways to connect with and lead your team during these changing times.
Particularly it is important to ensure that staff progress reviews are not missed due to other distractions and potentially having company morale and mental health champions in the business will help ensure employees can perform at their best and stick with your company for the long term.
Conclusion
We hope you find these tips of use and wish you the best of success in 2021!
If you are interested to work with a recruitment agency that can help support you with your vacancies and objectives above, then please contact us at Talk Recruitment Ltd to discuss a vacancy or for more advice and support with your recruitment processes and employer branding.
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