Most successful companies will accept the statement: “Your people are your most important asset.”
The better ones will then try and act on that statement by implementing best practice into talent attraction, employee development, staff wellbeing, benefits and flexible working conditions.
Attracting the best talent you can is not an easy proposition. It takes the most-difficult to attain aspect of business – consistency!
Consistency in delivering all of the above human resource elements to your current staff, partnering with the right recruitment professionals and H.R consultants and delivering that consistent message of who you are, what you stand for, what your best at, and where you wish to be in the future, to any prospective employees.
Like I said, no mean feat…
You will need to engage your target candidates across a range of media; keep working on your branding and advertise vacancies with details including description of your company culture, team focuses and vision for the future.
Once you have attracted potentially appropriate candidates, then begins the dreaded interview process!
Only dreaded if your business has no plan or preparation in place. Before interviews take place, the business needs to think about and make decisions on the following:
- Who will conduct the interviews at various stages, and why?
- Have they received training on conducting a positive and engaging discovery-based interview?
- Have they received training on subconscious bias?
- How do you want the interview to flow – who will ask what and when?
- Do they need any tools to interview the candidates and have they received training on those?
- What format will the interviews take place in – office, video, phone – and why?
- How long should the process ideally take?
- Who will deliver feedback to candidates and when?
- Have you received sign off on remuneration and is there scope for negotiation?
Once interview training incorporating these elements takes place it gives the interviewers more confidence in the process; it allows them more freedom to make decisions instead of procrastinating and it gives a positive and professional impression to the candidates.
Remember – Interviewing is a two-way street. Candidates must like what they hear and how it is delivered as much as you, the employer. This is even more at stake in the race for talent in many qualified fields.
