6 tips to dramatically improve how successful you are at hiring

If you have tried to hire someone in the technology space over the last few years it will come as no surprise to you when I say the fight for top talent is very real.

Acceleration of digital transformation has had a profound effect on technology recruitment markets around the globe. Due to this transformation, technology markets are becoming borderless. You are no longer competing with local businesses to hire top talent from an already small talent pool, these top individuals are being contacted from businesses across the world offering whatever it takes to secure their services. It is more important than ever to help yourself as much as possible and to give yourself an edge when trying to hire top talent.

So how can you improve how successful you are at hiring?

Below are 6 of my top tips, I'll expand on each of them in future blogs so make sure to keep your eyes peeled. As always, if you would like to explore each of these topics further or would like a more tailored hiring plan, please feel free to reach out to me directly - jack@unveilrecruitment.com

Firstly, let's talk about flexibility. Does the person you are looking for realistically exist or are you looking for a unicorn? The businesses who are the most successful at hiring recognise the need to be flexible in order to hire. How flexible are you with having someone who can develop into the person you need. I read lots of job descriptions where I think to myself “this person doesn’t exist and if they do, they cost double what the job is paying and they’ll take months to find”. The businesses who are hiring successfully are able to take calculated risks and give new employees time to become the ideal hire (within reason of course, the work still needs to be completed). Hiring based on attitude really does beat skills in the long run.

Secondly, let's look at how you attract top talent. In order to do this successfully you need to build trust from the offset. Looking at how you can build an engaged brand in the community you are trying to recruit from is key. If someone doesn't know you but they know the brand you represent, they are much more likely to engage with you.

If you decide to post job adverts, ensure you write something engaging and exciting. Avoid something generic with a quick intro to the business and then a list of skills and responsibilities. Try changing up the language in your conversations and descriptions to avoid using years of experience as an indicator to understand how experienced someone is. If you need a certain level of skill for the role you are recruiting why not write what you expect someone to have delivered or have had ownership of. Specifying that someone must have 6+ years experience doesn’t mean they'll meet your expectations. Be more specific with the language of what you expect from your new employee, this will also help you with devising useful interview questions. This is your chance to stand out from the crowd and your first chance to get prospective employees bought into your business.

If you decide to go a step further and start reaching out to people directly, try creating interesting content to engage your audience. This could be in the form of interviews with your leaders, quick fact sheets on what it is like to work with you, your story of why you do what you do or, how you can help someone achieve their goals. If you want to talk about your culture, please don’t just write - We have a great culture - everyone says this and not many businesses can explain why. If your culture is a selling point then make a point of telling your audience why you are different to everyone else.

Next on the list would be to improve your interview process, and no I don't mean make it as short as possible. Before you start to interview my advice would be to decide what skills, attributes and experience you want someone to showcase. Then you can create something which is fit for purpose to make sure you get the information you need and the person interviewing has a great encounter with your business. By deciding on the stages before you start, you can ensure a brilliant candidate experience. There is nothing worse than changing things half way through or adding extra stages in at the end. Believe it or not, I chat with so many people who become disenchanted with a business when this happens because expectations which were set don't get met. Decide how may stages you need. Ask yourself - can I add people into the same interview to reduce the amount of stages. Do I need a technical test or can I gather the information I need from looking at Github or a past project.

If you include a technical test, does it need to be 8 hours long? If someone is interviewing at 5 companies and they all give a take home test which takes hours to complete, do you think you'll be able to get the best from someone?

Design the Interview questions you'll be asking candidates prior to interview this will ensure you can evaluate people on a level playing field. To get the answers you are seeking, try asking situational based questions and ask someone to give you evidence to back up their answer. This will help your conversation flow.

One of the most important things you can do right now is to teach your hiring managers how to sell the business and the position. The fight for talent is real, the interview process is as much about you selling the business to a prospective employee as it is about someone selling themselves to you. I could write another blog on this, however, to simplify - try asking your hiring managers to ask someone what it is they expect from a new position or new employer. Ask someone what goals they are trying to achieve, and then tell them how you can help them to achieve said goals. You would be surprised how little this happens and how much of an impact it can have.

My next top tip would be to look at the speed of your process - I'm not just talking about quick feedback and a short interview process here, but speed throughout the entire process.

When speaking to an external recruiter, make sure set up a call quickly with them. This shows recruiter you’re serious about hiring and they are more likely to focus more of their time on your vacancy. Try to be as responsive as possible and give them updates, treat them as an extension of your team and you will find you will get much more value from them.

When you are sent a CV either directly or from an agency, try to read it and give feedback to the person within a 24-48 hour period. This shows people you’re serious about hiring and will mean they stay much more bought into your business if other companies are reaching out to them (and believe me, they will be reaching out). Someone's experience through the process makes a huge difference! Try to make the interview process run quickly and smoothly. Whether you are doing 2 stages or 5 stages try and complete all stages within a 2-3 week window. This shows you’re a business who can get things done and ensures for a great candidate experience. If you need to pencil in slots for a 2nd face to face before someone has passed a first stage so that you can find a time in the CTO’s diary then do it, you can always delete it if the candidate doesn’t pass. Just make sure you are upfront with all parties and I guarantee you will reduce your time to hire, reduce the number of drop outs from interview and secure way more people who are highly engaged with your business. When it comes to offering the right person a position I appreciate you might want to wait until you've interviewed everyone you can, the temptation is to keep going. Be ready to make a decision when you find the right person and move quickly to secure them. Strike whilst the iron is hot. A prospective employee is lot more likely to say yes to an offer if it comes within a 24 hour window rather than a week later. Finally, and this part is crucial, don’t delay when it comes to getting contracts out. This is one of the key times when someone's head can turn. People can get nervous that something isn't happening if it takes weeks to get a contract in front of them. During that time the other interview processes they were in are finishing, and they are getting approached by new roles. I can assure you that until someone signs on the dotted line, the majority will take the other call. If you can get a contract to someone on the same day or the day after they accept an offer, you have a much higher chance of success.

Look at the packages you offer. I would advise researching what your competitors are offering. Do you need to increase your base salary or introduce bonus schemes or offer equity. This can look daunting and might mean mean you end up investing more money than you originally planned, however in todays market you need to be competitive to hire the best people.

Do you offer training and development to your employees? Find out what someone really cares about and help them to achieve their goals. They will thank you with loyalty and dedication to your cause.

Do you offer remote working? Around 75% of companies offer this as a standard these days and during the last few years people have discovered what they truly value. If your competitors offer remote working, you might need to offer the same in order to stay competitive and hire top talent. Fun fact: 86% of software engineers work remotely full time in 2022.

Have a think about what other benefits could be important like pensions, private healthcare, travel loans, sign on bonuses, company laptops or phones. extra certifications etc - there are loads I haven't listed here. If you are unsure, you could ask your current team!

Finally, if you choose to use an external recruitment partner for all or some of your more specialist positions, search for a partner who knows how to access the people you need.

It's okay to use a number of different agencies for different things. The agency who is great at finding engineering talent might not be so great at finding people who can build your marketing function or your senior leadership team. Using an agency who says they can recruit for everything probably won’t get you the best people. They might find you profiles, but I doubt they will be the best you can find.

Be mindful that more traditional recruitment methods don’t work as well as they used to. People are annoyed with all the mass messaging and pestering they receive from recruiters. The best candidates in the market only pick up to recruiters they really trust, who are embedded in the market they recruit. It’s key to identify recruiters who use more modern techniques and who are able to build a trusted network to be able to access top talent.

Something to note when it comes to using recruiters - you get what you pay for (usually).

To conclude, I've covered a lot in this blog and to be honest I could write a lot more about each topic. The tips above are fairly generic and will need to be tailored towards your business and the positions you are hiring for. There are lots of ways to help you hire more successfully. If you follow this guide and implement the above, I will guarantee you will be able to secure a lot of very talented people to help you build your vision.

If you would like more information on any of the above, or would like to use UNVEIL for a more tailored solution to suit your needs then please do not hesitate to reach out to me on Jack@unveilrecruitment.com