This article was republished from the May issue of Australian Printer, authored by Meqa Smith
If you feel like you’re trying to keep your head above water in the middle of all this global uncertainty – and on top of it all, you’re losing employees and it feels impossible to replace them – I’ve got good news for you. It’s easier than you think to win the war for talent, but it will take work.
Yes, there are some unique things about this post-COVID era but when it comes to people, human nature doesn’t change, so getting back to basics is the best solution.
The top three mistakes I see businesses make when they recruit are:
- Thinking about employment as a commercial contract – skills and/or time for money. So, the focus is on specific qualifications, technical skills, years of experience, hours and dollars on offer.
- Believing that you must be always ‘professional’ during recruitment and employment. This leads to the language and process being devoid of emotion, lacking humanity and turning people into numbers.
- Treating recruitment as a stand-alone administrative process. Often meaning the process is given no thought other than ‘put an ad on Seek and ask for resumes’, the ad is the job description and candidate experience isn’t considered.
These mistakes cause business owners and HR teams to do things in a way that is guaranteed to deliver the opposite of the results they’re looking for.
So how do you fix it? Create a recruitment process that activates people at an emotional level, or as I like to call it, an unforgettable recruitment process. There are three key steps you’ll need to take to get started:
Step 1: Reframe employment as a relationship between the employee and their direct manager
Yes, it’s commercial, but that’s not the way the employee feels about it. This is the place they spend most of their waking hours and earn their living. Just like any other relationship, it must be mutually beneficial to work. You must look at it as a partnership, an exchange of value.
To do this you have to start by getting very clear about the value (tangible and intangible) you’re asking for and offering in return and make sure these two things are a fair exchange. Ask yourself if your ideal candidate would be genuinely attracted by the proposition you’re making, if not, it’s back to the drawing board.
Without this step you will set yourself up to fail.
Step 2: Accept that recruitment is sales, so you need to create an emotional connection with your ad
If your ad isn’t polarising people based on what is special and unique about the person you’re looking for and working for you then you’ll just end up with a pile of resumes from people who ‘could’ do the job. They aren’t raising their hands and saying “OMG this is the job for me! I’m your perfect person.”
People don’t believe the things you write in your job ad when you write like a lawyer crossed with a marketer. Cliches, jargon, big words and vague statements don’t stand out or paint a picture in the candidate’s mind of a job they really want.
This means you will be wasting your time trawling through resumes of people who may not even remember applying for your job and the process will convince you “there are no good people out there”.
Use emotion, be human, write your ad in a way that paints a picture of specifically who you’re looking for and what you’re offering them in return for their skills and experience. You need this ad to get the attention of your ideal candidate and turn off those who wouldn’t be a good fit.
Step 3: Treat recruitment as a strategic activity of the highest value and create a positive experience for candidates
Your recruitment process is the gateway to joining your team. It is the most powerful lever you must set your business up for great performance. The way you hire people determines who you attract, how engaged your new hires are and even whether they stay.
If you’re attracting the right kind of people, assessing them in the right way (for motivation, culture and vision-alignment) and activating their seeking systems so that they are in ‘productivity mode’ then you create a huge ROI for the business. Higher productivity levels, improved profitability, higher retention rates and happier employees will result.
Once you’ve created the first version of your own unforgettable recruitment process, you’ll soon start to see the difference it makes to your talent attraction efforts. Over time you can build more advanced versions of this process to continue to improve your results.
Remember to think ‘unforgettable’, as success is all about connecting with people emotionally.
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