Recently, we wrote a piece asking how important it was to have an aligned hiring team. You can read it here, but in short – it’s very important.
It’s increasingly difficult to engage and secure top talent and not having an aligned team makes it more difficult to get the candidate onboard or get the team to agree on a candidate.
That’s why I sat down with our COO, Walter Speirs, to get his top tips on how to align your hiring team for a successful hire.
Walter’s been working with companies across the globe for over 20 years, securing them the best talent on the market. So, he knows what he’s talking about…
1. Introduce Your Whole Team To Your Recruiter
Not everyone likes or trusts recruiters. We get it. It’s an unregulated industry and that means there can be a lack of accountability and process, depending on who you work with.
That’s why we always ask to be introduced to every decision maker at the start of the hiring journey. It helps them see our full process and buy into how we work. It shows them we have a process that we hold ourselves accountable to, and helps them see us as a partner, rather than just a supplier.
The same strategy applies regardless of your recruiter. If you buy into what they do, you need everyone else to – or your, and their decisions will face more questions down the line.
If every stakeholder accepts your recruiter as part of the team, they won’t see them as an outsider to be viewed with suspicion and decisions can be made faster. (And fast decisions are important in a market that’s moving quickly).
Accepting “Right First Time”
It also helps us get them to accept that we’re looking to hire right first time, an important part of our hiring process. In a market where candidates job-hop regularly, many companies don’t expect their first hire to stick around long-term.
That means some people think “this person will do” and encourage us to go ahead with someone who “almost fits”. We believe in hiring right first time, and we need every stakeholder to understand this so we can both be successful.
2. Get Everyone Who Will Be Involved Bought In At The Beginning
It’s common for an internal team to pull someone new into the hiring process halfway through. It could be a senior member of the team, a new management hire, or a changeup in the business means someone else needs to get involved.
While sometimes this can’t be avoided, it often ends up derailing the process. The new people haven’t been involved in the original briefing and they often come in with their own opinions, unaware of earlier discussions.
That means going over original decisions, which can delay the hiring. With candidates often taking part in multiple hiring processes, delays are not a good idea when you’re trying to hire top candidates.
3. Discover Everyone’s Ideal Traits At The Start Of The Process
We spoke about derailing a process by introducing a new decision maker. But the process can also be derailed by new requirements.
If we get a few days into hiring and someone introduces a new skill or quality their candidates need, that means recalibrating a search. That’s why it’s important to find out everyone’s ideals before a search is kicked off.
That means we work with you to get every stakeholder’s skills, qualifications, personality traits, location, and experience set in stone. From the kick off.
It also helps if the hiring manager isn’t the one who brings in the recruiter. If their preferences are taken onboard from the beginning, they’re more likely to be happy with their new employee and the onboarding process will go much more smoothly. And the employee is more likely to stay.
4. Get The Team To Complete A Job Profile
When we kick off a process, we get the hiring team to complete individual job profiles.
This is a simple test the team completes and gives us an idea of what is needed. After all, if there are five people involved in the process, it’s almost impossible to hire for five totally different requirements.
If the whole team have different job profiles, we know we need to calibrate that before starting. We can then say to the hiring manager “Emma is looking for a totally different person Jim, what are both of their absolute must-haves?” and go from there.
This profile often goes hand in hand with a psychometric test to the candidate. This provides information on a candidate’s way of working and how they’ll fit in with the team. Being able to compare this to a job profile adds another level of security. But even if it’s not used in conjunction with the psychometric test, job profiles are still a really useful tool.
5. Educate Your Team On Your Candidate Value Proposition
Candidates are no longer just selling themselves to your team. You’re also selling your team to candidates.
The recruitment market is hectic right now and there are thousands of companies hunting for the same top talent you are. With candidates being contacted regularly by businesses and recruiters, and news reports talking about “The Great Resignation”, they’ve never been surer of their worth.
Which means, like a good sales team, everyone in your business needs to know your company’s positives and be on the same page.
There’s no point in one stakeholder discussing how great the communication in the business is, if the next person doesn’t know what the company’s mission statement is. Candidates will immediately see through this.
Corporate Social Responsibility
And with candidates increasingly concerned over their employer’s social responsibility and sustainability, it’s important they’re given the right impression from the off.
With 1 in 5 consumers choosing not to buy from a company with poor sustainability, social responsibility is huge for everyone. And according to the World Economic Forum, prioritising talk over action when it comes to Social Responsibility leads to customer disengagement and employee cynicism.
Looking for a recruiter who can help you steer through team alignment and complete a successful hiring process? Get in touch with us to arrange a meeting today.
