vivoHR Guide to successful recruitment
Hello. I’m Sam Swinstead, owner of vivoHR and thank you for linking through to this successful recruitment guide for business owners.
Your business is going from strength to strength which is great news and it’s likely you’ll need more people to get all of the new work done. Recruitment is a time and expense cost in a business. So here are our top tips to help you recruit the best people, first time.
- Job Description
Write a clearly defined Job Description and Person Specification. These set out the tasks you need someone to do, as well as the desired skills, knowledge, experience and attitude to be successful.
- Advertising the role
Consider the most effective way to advertise the role:
- Recruitment agencies can be great but are expensive
- Online advertising via job sites is cost effective but you can be overwhelmed with applications and the quality might be dubious
- Newspaper or magazine advertising can be expensive, but if you need to target a geographical area or an industry sector it can be effective
- Adverts in the Job Centre are free and their online service is a great resource
- Your personal and social media networks. Word of mouth and personal recommendations are powerful means of reaching potential candidates.
- Recruit in haste, repent at leisure.
Never recruit in haste or recruit the best of a bad bunch, no matter how urgent it is to fill a vacancy. We know of too many stories where a business has done this and then quickly regretted it!
4. Follow a robust recruitment procedure
It is important that you are consistent about your recruitment process.
- Request CVs or a completed application form to be submitted by a certain date, to a specific person / email address.
- Shortlist from the applications received.
- Contact the candidates and schedule the interviews. Plan the questions you will ask. Base these on the requirements in the Job Description and Person Specification. Ask questions about behaviour and ask for examples of skills and knowledge relevant to the role.
- Ideally have a second person to interview with you and meet the candidate too. A second opinion can be very worthwhile.
- Consider work-based assessments to provide objective measures of a candidate’s ability.
5. The Offer
Any job offer made is to be subject to satisfactory references and ensure that you take these up. Additionally, make sure that your successful applicant is eligible to work in the UK by taking copies of suitable evidence such as a passport, birth certificate and work visas where required.
Thanks for reading this successful recruitment guide, we hope it is helpful. If you have any further questions about successful recruitment, feel free to contact us. Click to find out more about HR Support from vivoHR.