How do you recruit? 8 practical tips for successful recruitment

How do you recruit effectively? Recruitment is a key stage in the life of a company, with the aim of finding, renewing or strengthening the skills on which the company's development depends. It is therefore essential to do everything possible to assess whether a candidate's profile matches the requirements of a position.

From the precise definition of skills requirements to the selection of suitable profiles, and including the implementation of recruitment management, successful recruitment does not happen by chance. It is the result of a relatively complex recruitment procedure encompassing numerous stages and requiring rigour, strategy and planning.

Rest assured, however, that there are certain precautions you can take to ensure you have every chance of recruiting the right person. In this article, appvizer gives you some advice on how to carry out your recruitment in a methodical way and ultimately make the right choice. You should also be aware that there is software designed to improve your human resources management processes, and in particular the delicate exercise of recruitment.

See all software Recruiting

Successful recruitment

The risks of hasty or badly organised recruitment

Recruiting is a process that costs a lot of time, energy and money, as well as credibility. If it does not take the appropriate measures to put its recruitment management in place, the company exposes itself to risks involving :

• the opportunity cost: the expected skills and qualities are not there, which creates a loss of earnings ;
• the cost of direct training : the time wasted managing an employee who is not right for the job;
• the cost of salary;
• the cost of redundancy if you have to let the person go after 3 to 6 months, when the trial period has already expired;
• other induced costs, such as a significant impact on the team atmosphere or a slowdown in certain projects in which the recruit is involved.

Successful recruitment is not an easy goal to achieve, but it does not have to be impossible. While there is rarely an absolute success score, even after many years of experience, there are ways of minimising the risks, maximising the chances of finding the right candidate, and avoiding recruitment mistakes.

Choosing the right candidate

Matching the requirements of a job with the profile of a candidate is synonymous with added value in terms of productivity within the company, while at the same time encouraging the creation of teams that are fulfilled in their working environment.

So it's important to choose the right person, but equally important not to go overboard. Beware of the myth of the perfect candidate: our vision of the job market and of what makes a "good candidate" may be mistaken or imprecise.

The key is to remain consistent, objective and realistic.

So stop looking for the five-legged sheep! When writing the job advert, ask yourself whether this person really exists on the market and whether the combination of skills required is likely.

You can call on the services of a recruitment professional who is familiar with the job market and practices in your sector for a similar position, in order to define realistic requirements in line with your needs.

8 practical tips for effective recruitment

Tip 1: Define your needs

As with any recruitment strategy or action plan, it is essential to analyse your recruitment needs before taking any action.

What kind of profile are you looking for?

You can define the requirements of the position to be filled in terms of the key skills sought. Prioritise these skills, from the essential to the highly recommended, possibly mentioning the bonus qualities that will enhance the candidate's potential.

Also take note of the values that your future recruit should possess. Don't forget to consider how the job might develop and the skills that will be needed in that context.

The more precisely the criteria are defined, the more likely it is that the profiles examined will match the vacancy. For an existing position, ask yourself whether the job description and recruitment criteria used previously are still relevant. As a general rule, it's a good idea to define a common recruitment policy for all the posts to be filled.

Tip 2: Choose the right timing and validate the budget

Whether you're opening a new position or replacing an existing one, make sure that your recruitment fits in with the company's overall agenda and is in line with its strategic vision. To do this, gain the approval of everyone involved in the new recruitment, so that you don't get stuck.

Another vital factor is that the post must be included in the budget. Keep yourself informed about the current salary ranges in the field concerned.

Finally, try to decide whether you're going to recruit internally, focusing on the profiles and skills already available within the company at the time you need resources, or externally, by looking for candidates from outside the organisation.

Ultimately, the watchword here is anticipation. Internal mobility, retirement, maternity leave, creation of a new department, general growth of the company, etc. HR managers need to have a clear picture of all the situations involving changes in personnel so that they can identify the profiles they need to recruit and build their skills development plan at the same time.

Anticipation calls for reactivity, but without haste: the aim is to make the right decision at the right time.

As your decision-making process may be slowed down or hampered by problems with the agendas of the various stakeholders, draw up a schedule of the important stages and deadlines to be met:

• appointments and meetings with the various parties involved,
• the date of the proposal to the candidate
• the deadline for the decision and announcement to the candidate,
• the expected date of taking up the post, etc.

Getting your timing right and setting deadlines will help you to avoid promising candidates dropping out because they may be discouraged by long waiting times, or even accept another offer before yours. Don't let talent slip through your fingers!

Tip 3: Write a precise, personalised advert

A precise but accessible job description is essential to attract qualified candidates:

• make sure that the text is clear and avoid "jargon" specific to your company, which can give the impression of a lack of openness;
• describe the duties of the post in sufficient detail to make them easy to understand, even if the format encourages brevity;
• focus on honesty and transparency: the announcement of good prospects for career development runs the risk of losing credibility if there is nothing to back up this promise;
• Indicate the diplomas, certifications and any proof of skills required for the job: this will save you time later on.

Finally, the advertisement should include a description of the company culture into which the candidate will be integrating. You need to define this clearly beforehand, as well as its limits, i.e. the extent to which it will be tolerated to deviate from it.

Tip 4: Distribute the job advert through all the relevant channels

Once the advert is ready, the search for candidates begins. The most classic scenario is to publish the advert on the employer's website, in the "Jobs" or "Join us" section. Other types of platform will give you wider visibility, such as :

• generalist or specialist job sites,
• university or school alumni networks,
• recruitment agency portals,
• LinkedIn, etc.
• More original recruitment techniques!

In many cases, communicating about your recruitment activities will increase your pool of candidates, so don't hold back!

And if you're looking to create a career site to persuade talented people to join your company, softgarden offers very simple, quick-to-use templates with landings pages that are well referenced on Google so that you're more easily visible!

This can be a time-consuming operation, especially if you are targeting a large number of channels to give your ad the best possible impact. Why not opt for an automated solution? Human resources management software specialising in recruitment and Applicant Track ing Systems (ATS) has been designed to make you more efficient while limiting your costs.

Like Softy, some of these tools offer a highly advantageous feature: multi-posting of job offers. With just one click, your advertisements are published on all the relevant job boards and on the careers page of your site.

Tip 5: Involve employees in the selection process

In the course of your search, you will probably have to use selection tools, such as aptitude tests, to judge a candidate's qualifications for a position, in a defined technical context. As the recruiter is not always the most appropriate person to assess the quality of the test results themselves, recruitment co-option is a solution that allows colleagues to be involved: they will be the correctors, proofreaders, validators, etc.

It may be a good idea to ask the candidate's future colleagues for their opinions.

During the selection process, you can hire your employees directly using a recruitment management tool that enables everyone involved in the hiring process to share comments on each candidate.

Taleez, for example, includes a collaborative messaging system designed for the simultaneous sharing of feedback, as well as a candidate rating system.

In the same way, Nicoka ATS provides shared access to information about candidates: grades, interview reports, assessment results, CVs, etc.

Both offer human resources and recruitment managers the opportunity to draw on employees' skills and knowledge to recruit their future colleagues. Thanks to this collaborative approach, you'll be in a better position to make the best possible decision.

Tip 6: Prepare for the job interview

While naturalness and spontaneity have their place in this context, conducting a job interview is not something you can improvise. If you're well prepared, you'll be more confident and better able to put forward relevant arguments.

There are a few steps to follow in preparing for your interview:

• start by setting out the objectives you want to achieve during the discussion, and sketch out a framework for the interview;
• Then write down the questions you want to ask and the answers you want to get;
• construct an interview grid to help you record and compare the strengths, areas for improvement, skills and potential of your candidates after the interview;
• be prepared to answer any questions that may arise during the face-to-face meeting;
• find a neutral, quiet place to meet the candidate, as it could be unsettling for them to be interrupted during their presentation.

Bear in mind that you will need to maintain an open attitude, while making sure you take notes and remain in control of the interview.

Tip 7: Encourage interpersonal skills

Knowing how to recruit also means planning for the successful integration of the new employee into your team. As a recruiter, you can even envisage that you will work with or for this person, or that he or she will one day become your manager.

One of the essential criteria for recruitment is to assess the individual's ease of integration into a team.

In addition to technical skills and other business knowledge, the added value of your future employee lies in his or her so-called "soft skills ", which apply regardless of profile or hierarchical level (manager, employee, director, supervisor, etc.). These soft skills are the equivalent of a varnish on a raw material: the person stands out from the crowd, distinguishes themselves through their interpersonal qualities and is more inclined to exceed expectations in terms of performance, thanks to their commitment and proactivity.

Soft skills are increasingly valued in companies, and are sometimes even favoured over purely technical skills. To ensure that your future recruit fits in with your company's culture, it is advisable to agree with your colleagues on the qualities expected of the candidate. For example, he or she should possess :

• an entrepreneurial spirit?
• A taste for creativity?
• a talent for interpersonal relations?
• A strong desire to innovate?

Depending on the country and culture, companies place varying degrees of emphasis on an individual's behaviour at work, their relationship with colleagues and their interpersonal skills, as this Joblift infographic shows:

It's up to you to choose one or more decisive assets to help you make the right decision at the end of your interviews.

Tip 8: Make a decision

Think you've found the right candidate? Now is the time to send positive feedback to the selected candidate and make them an offer. We advise you to make your offer orally first, to gain extra time to check references and make any final arrangements you want to make.

Once these adjustments have been made, you can move on to negotiating a more concrete offer. The recruitment process comes to an end when the final hiring decision, if accepted, concludes with the signing of the employment contract.

However, even after this apparent happy ending, the success of the recruitment process cannot be assessed simply on the basis of the conclusion of a contract. It is measured over the longer term, taking into account the adaptation of the person recruited to their environment and their ability to develop professionally and personally within it.

See all software Recruiting

Final tips

When all is said and done, there really isn't an unstoppable tactic for knowing how to recruit, given that each method is adapted to a given professional environment.

Even so, the basic tips we have reviewed provide a solid foundation for optimising your processes and achieving near-perfect recruitment.

As a general rule, we advise you to adopt an open attitude:

• Show empathy: trying to understand the candidate's past experience and get a good feel for the personality requires empathy and a great deal of humility. Try to avoid prejudices and other preconceived ideas: If you have any doubts, don't hesitate to discuss them with your colleagues and even the person concerned, by asking them the right questions.
• Put the person in a position of trust: don't try to establish a hierarchy or power relationship: a relationship of equals fosters a climate of trust and encourages the candidate to be transparent when talking about their skills, experience and values.
• Remain open to other types of profile : even if they don't seem to "fit in" with the company's culture at first sight, these atypical profiles may offer a new way of looking at things. After all, a company's strength also lies in the diversity of its employees. This diversity is a source of development, innovation and positive change within an organisation.

So what about you? How do you go about recruiting? Do you have any special methods or infallible recipes for successful recruitment?