Recruitment can keep many entrepreneurs awake at night. I think I can confidently say that it was one of the biggest challenges on the way to any company’s development. I remember when recruitment was relatively easy, it was about 6 years ago. I started the process, there was an advertisement, several hundred CVs were submitted, we invited a dozen of the best people and submitted one or two offers.
Now, a few years later, we can make an advertisement, but often none of the candidates qualifies for the meeting. I ask – WHAT HAPPENED?!
What could be behind such dramatic effectiveness?
Some people roar – it is the employee market! Others say that companies have bosses, not leaders, and nobody wants to work for them. There are also voices, that employees are spoiled and too lazy to change jobs. In this post, I would like to calmly discuss the situation and answer the question – What can we do about it?
Reasons for the difficult situation
Today on any job board are thousands of job advertisements. I often come across advertisements for “Consultant” or “Specialist” in which the responsibilities clearly indicate different position. Skipping that fact – there is still a lot to choose from.
We should bear in mind that many positions are still a misunderstood and underestimated profession, which is rather treated as a forced break in a career than its immediate goal.
There are many factors that influence a difficult situation, but for the purposes of this article, I will highlight the following two:
Too many job offers
Not enough good candidates
What can we do about it?
Before we start recruiting, we must consider whether the environment and work culture are at such a level that it is worth bothering to recruit good creative person.
If not – it is a pointless expense, because such a person will run away very quickly after finding out where he or she is. The most common symptom of the problem is the high turnover rate in current employment. If your business is affected by this issue, be sure to invest in fixing it first.
Coming to the bottom line, there are quite a lot of actions that can be taken to find a creative person. I will try to list all the ways that can help, in tight points, without spilling water unnecessarily. It is true that not all of them will work in all conditions, so I recommend that you go through the list and look for a method that may work in your company.
Note – the entry does not say how to create a competency profile, how to test a candidate and choose the right person for your company. This is a topic for a separate material. Today I am focusing on having nobody to test competencies when there are no interested candidates.
- Think about the name of the position – It’s not an obvious thing to do but it is important. Think carefully about what will be the function of a new person. People want to be proud of the position they hold as well as it must math the whole job description. Also, I found that many people will see the name of their position as a good compensation for not getting a rise. Did you know it?
- Verify the salary and benefits you propose – When writing about benefits, I do not mean group insurance and employee discounts. Unfortunately, no one pays attention to this anymore. A company car is a benefit that is becoming more and more popular. This is often more effective than a high salary and binds the employee more to the company. Also if you expect big experience and knowledge – keep the minimu wage for youreself.
- The lengthy recruitment process is discouraging – Remember, the competition is awake and the candidate often accepts the first offer. If you make a process of a few meetings, phone calls and homework you must be aware that you lose great candidates. I know, you want to check them but no one wants to prove themselves/ their worth. Find a balance in that. The candidates don’t know if they want to work for you yet and you give them things to do straight away. They could apply for a job but it is not equal will the willing to work for you. They want to know you and your company as much as you want to know them and their competences.
- Consider the channels for reaching candidates – An advertisement is often no longer sufficient. Employers keep coming up with new ways to reach potential candidates. Think, write down and define your recruitment strategy. Where are your potential candidates? What are they reading and what are they interested in? Or maybe you can just find them on LinkedIn? Independent Direct Search is currently probably the most effective form of recruitment. It is important to have a well-worded message for this, with a clearly defined value proposition. After all, we are dealing with people who know their worth.
- Find an experienced recruiting partner – From my own experience, I can say that a recruiting company is not always a good choice for creative people. On the other hand, a company that specializes in recruiting this kind of people is often a remedy for many problems. A ready database of candidates, industry contacts and proven methods are often invaluable. The obvious disadvantage of this solution is the additional costs. Without any emotions, it is worth comparing them with potential losses in the event of prolonged employment and decide based on the numbers if it is profitable.
- Prepare an attractive advertisement – The ad should be thoughtful, neat and pleasing to the eye. It is worth investing in a graphic designer that will create an advertisement that is attractive to the target group that interests you. Often, after the advertisement or website is displayed, the candidate makes a preliminary assessment of the company and decides to apply.
- Consider why it is worth working for you? – I still see advertisements in the “We offer” section saying: “attractive salary” and “work in a dynamic environment”. Try to do things differently.
- Make the first contact quickly – If it takes several days or weeks for your company to contact the candidate after receiving the CV, change it. If you come across an interesting application, call as soon as possible. Most often, I observe HR departments collecting applications for a month, then they analyze them and finally make contact. Then we run the risk of the interesting candidatures becoming obsolete.
- The first stage of recruitment in the form of workshops – An interesting form of recruitment are workshops to which interested candidates are invited. I don’t really mean the Assessment Center well known to all HR specialists. I am talking about full-fledged creative workshops. On the one hand, workshops allow candidates to acquire new skills, which will attract interesting people. On the other hand, the employer can get to know the applicants better. Starting contact with a new company in this way also shows the candidate that the work will be developmental – that’s a big value for many people. P.S. This type of recruitment is what my infuture.fashion team is doing for our Clients. Just saying…
- Take care of opinions about your company – As consumers, we are already used to asking Google for phrases like “product name + reviews”. It is similar to looking for a job. If your company does not care how it is perceived by employees and what is written about it, many interesting candidates may resign at this stage. Also, don’t be a dick and don’t expect from your employees writing an opinion. I found that some companies ask for that straight away while hiring new people or they send follow up emails asking over and over again for adding a review. If your employees are not doing it – there’s probably a reason for that, don’t you think?
Summary
Recently, I had a very interesting conversation with the HR Manager of a fashion company. Together, we have come to the conclusion that the skills and competencies of effective HR departments are becoming more and more blurred with marketing and sales competencies. Wherever the demand is greater than the supply, the offer and process must be better formulated than the competition.
Are you looking for ways to find creative, proactive people to drive innovation in your brand forward? Ask an infuture.fashion expert how you can do this during a free consultation. Leave an email address below. Our office will contact you to arrange a private call.
See you in the next post,
Patrycja Franczak
