5 must-have practices for successful recruiting this year

They say that an organization is only as good as its employees. That's certainly true in many cases, as having competent and motivated staff can have a huge impact on your company's success. From the people that actually make the product or perform the service to all additional personnel, such as sales, marketing, and accounting, everyone relies on successful recruiting by the human resources department. 

Times are always changing, however, and the practices that attracted quality job candidates 10 or even five years ago may not be as effective today. There are certain must-haves for successful recruiting that can help you and your organization enrich your staff with the right people for each open position.

Useful skills for recruiters

Before listing some useful practices for attracting quality personnel, it's important to define the skills your HR department members can work on to improve their output. These skills include the following:

• Communication: As a recruiter, you must be able to express your thoughts and ideas effectively and efficiently, both verbally and in writing. Much of the work of a recruiter involves drafting job ads, communicating with prospects, and generally being the link between the hiring organization and interested prospective candidates.
• Reliability: Recruiters represent the company's image, so being highly reliable can paint the entire organization in a positive light. Showcasing reliability means providing accurate information to all job candidates and prospects and using your knowledge of and experience in HR to find mutually acceptable agreements between successful job candidates and the hiring company. 
• Networking: A key aspect of recruitment is knowing where to find people who are likely to fit the company from both a professional and personality standpoint. This usually requires the ability to form strong industry connections and interact with successful professionals who may be willing to work for the company now or in the future.
• Data analysis: Data-driven recruitment involves collecting, analyzing, and interpreting large quantities of job candidate data to make well-informed hiring decisions. Besides helping recruiters access larger candidate pools, employing data analysis can also reduce bias and successfully predict a candidate's job performance.
• Sales and marketing: Sales and marketing skills aren't exclusively useful to sales and marketing specialists. Recruitment is essentially the art and science of promoting and selling your organization to potential job candidates, so being convincing in your approach is a valuable skill for a recruitment professional.
• Critical thinking: Being able to think critically and make objective analyses is useful in virtually every aspect of someone's personal and professional life, and recruiting is no different. Having critical thinking skills can help recruiters reduce or eliminate bias when making hiring decisions.

5 must-have practices for successful recruiting

These are some of the practices HR professionals and business owners can work on to improve their recruiting:

Embrace modern technology

Technology can help with many aspects of the recruitment process, such as posting job ads, screening candidates, and making hiring decisions. Tools and techniques you can implement in your recruiting practices include the following:

• Applicant tracking systems: Applicant tracking systems are software applications that can help you track a job candidate throughout the entire recruitment process. You can use these systems to filter resumes based on specific requirements, schedule interviews with suitable candidates, and communicate with them throughout the entire process.
• Recruiting on social media:  Many people are on social media in one way or another, so it makes sense to use social media channels to source suitable job candidates. Besides using social media to find quality professionals directly, these platforms are also a good medium to promote your company to people who may be interested in working there so that they contact you instead of the other way around.
• Artificial intelligence: Everybody's talking about artificial intelligence (AI) nowadays, but few are able to use it effectively in their work. One way you can use AI is to automate some of your repetitive tasks, which frees up your time for more important work.
• Remote recruiting:  It's a shame to miss out on a potentially suitable candidate just because they can't join you for a face-to-face interview. You can use video interviews to conduct interviews remotely and even create immersive virtual reality experiences to help candidates get a feel of what it would be like to work for your organization.

"Having competent and motivated staff can have a huge impact on your company's success."

Make sure your job ads motivate people to work for your company

Job ads aren't just about telling potential candidates what you expect from them and what they should expect from you. They need to have the right appeal to attract quality job candidates and make them interested in working for your organization. They must also be tailored to each specific role to ensure that applicants have the necessary qualifications. Some practices you can use when writing job descriptions are:

• Create highly specific titles: Many job seekers browse through job ads and only read the description when they encounter an attractive title. Use the title to let them know exactly what the role is and who it's for.
• Include all necessary skills and requirements: When it comes to effective recruiting, it usually helps to prioritize quality over quantity. Listing all the required qualifications and future job responsibilities can narrow down your search by attracting people who have the requisite skills for the position.
• Paint the company in a positive light: As mentioned earlier, you need to do a little sales and marketing to attract quality candidates. Use job ads to promote your organization by mentioning what it can offer to its staff, describing the company culture, showcasing its achievements, and outlining its vision and goals for the future.
• Keep it concise: Job candidates spend little time on each job ad they read. Make sure to keep your ad as brief as possible without leaving out any essential information.

Determine the education and experience requirements that really matter

Having unnecessarily high minimum educational and experience qualifications for the roles you wish to fill can cause some qualified candidates not to apply. It may help to focus on soft skills and personality traits instead, as they're much harder to train than job-specific skills. If the role requires a college diploma and a certain experience level, then by all means, include them in the job ad. Otherwise, it may be best to keep the requirements to a minimum to ensure the right person doesn't slip through the cracks.

Use referrals

Who better can promote your company as a great place to work than the people who currently work there? Virtually every member of an organization can be a recruiter in the right circumstances. Building a well-structured referral system that properly rewards current employees for bringing in a qualified prospect is a low-cost way of getting new personnel. Consider offering bonuses to current employees if they bring in a candidate who is subsequently hired, as well as bonuses for specific employment milestones, such as the new employee spending a certain amount of time with the company.

Make your interviews engaging and interesting

You can also improve your recruitment process by conducting interviews that motivate candidates to do their best. Instead of asking the same boring questions a candidate has probably heard a million times before, try to find ways to engage them. One way to do so is to include behavioral interviews, which assess how a candidate reacted and behaved when faced with various situations in the past, rather than simply discussing their experience and skills. 

Recruitment is a continually changing practice, so it's important to keep up with the times if you wish to attract top talent. These must-have practices can help maximize the chances that quality professionals will be interested in working for your organization.

Learn more about successful recruiting:

Learn how AI is changing the recruitment process and how you can use it for your organization. 

Discover effective ways to expedite the hiring process for small businesses. 

Worried about your top professionals leaving? Learn how to retain your top talent with stay interviews.