Hiring Resolutions for 2020

Happy New Year!

Have you given any thoughts to your recruitment and retention strategy for 2020?

According to Indeed, job seeker searches peak this week and to help you get the most out of your recruitment, we have listed our 5 essential top tips for hiring the best candidates…

1. Set Goals

Many businesses have been feeling the results of skills shortages, to combat this as much as possible, we would suggest getting a firm and target-specific plan in place. Think about what you want to achieve from your recruitment efforts this year, what is your Return on Investment going to generate and what will you need to do to achieve your goals?

Some popular & measurable goals business set are:

Reduce recruitment spend by X%
Reduce reliance on recruitment agencies by X%
Increase your direct hire ratio by X%
Increase applications through own website by X%
Reduce the time to hire by X number of days

2. Get Organised

Are you wasting valuable time in your day with a disjointed or messy recruitment process? Do you find yourself looking at the same CV’s more than once? Are your candidates completely aware of what to expect and what will happen to them when they apply to your vacancies?

Improving communications both internal and external can be easier than you think with the technology available in today's recruitment world. Consider using an Applicant Tracking System (ATS). Flat Fee Recruiter provides access to one free of charge with every job advert placed, or you can upgrade and have a stand-alone system that integrates with your website, allows you to bespoke emails and keep on the ball with GDPR for ALL applications (not just the ones generated through advertising).

Creating a fully joined-up process, automating many of the admin tasks, getting ahead of compliance and keeping everything centralised, can only be a good thing – right?

Check out this post on Getting Started with Applicant Tracking Systems to start getting a feel for the tech available.

3. Create Great Adverts

Great adverts will attract better candidates! But what is a great advert? At Flat Fee Recruiter, we try to keep things as simple as possible and to us, there are 2 main elements:

1. Getting your adverts found by the right person

2. Getting the right person to click apply

To ensure your adverts are found by the right candidate, you need them to be written for the web. This means that you need to put your candidate hat on and think about what your ideal new starter will be putting into google. If you get this wrong, your advert simply will not appear in front of them. Check out How to Get your Advert Higher in Job Board Search Results

Once you have your advert in front of the right candidate, you need to ensure they click apply and follow your recruitment process. To do this well, you need to ensure the right amount of information/content, for that demographic, pushes their buttons. The most important and key information needs to be presented in the right style, length, format and order. A Mechanic advert is going to be very different from a Sales Manager advert.

4. Look after your Candidates

The skill shortage is set to get deeper, there are fewer people looking for work than ever before and competition is extremely high! Check out the latest employment figures.

Attracting candidates to your business and vacancies with engaging and clever SEO adverts is a great start, but keeping them clicked in through the recruitment cycle can be a nightmare! If you have ever arranged interviews and had candidates simply not show up, you will know what we mean.

Whilst you will never be able to eliminate this completely, most businesses could probably do more to reduce the amount of time wasted. In line with organising your recruitment process (point 2), consider other elements such as how you and your hiring managers portray your company brand – is it a true reflection? How are you selling the job to candidates when you first speak to them? Are you encouraging a positive experience for them or putting hurdles in their way? What happens when an applicant applies to a vacancy? Are they all on the same journey? How do you click them in? What are you offering that your competitors are not? How are you going to stand out and ensure that the candidates are chomping at the bit?

5. Think Mobile, Think Social, Think Online

Online recruitment, mobile recruitment and social recruitment are all very good starting points for great recruitment strategies. If you can generate 80% of your candidates through online sources then you will probably be quid’s in with your recruitment budget – Happy days for your P&L!

Engaging with candidates through social media, other online forums and mobile apps etc throughout the recruitment process is becoming the norm. Companies that do it well have much better success rates.

Don’t forget, most candidates will also use their phone to search and apply for jobs. This means that your careers website, the places you advertise, the recruitment system you use and the method in how candidates apply to your jobs, have all got to be as friendly as possible - or you will certainly be putting good candidates off.

Check out this article for more information on Social and Mobile Recruiting

We hope that we have inspired you to think about your recruitment process and maybe doing something different in 2020? If you need help, advice or even

If you need help, advice or even an advert writing we would love to hear from you - or 0113 322 7243

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