Why recruiting for your own company is difficult

Recruiting is not easy

Although I have been in the recruitment field for over 10 years, whenever I am faced with the task of recruiting for a new Seuss team member, I always come to the same conclusion. Recruitment is hard.

There is an undeniable ongoing ‘War for talent’ within the recruitment industry and we are all looking for great candidates to join our companies. It gets harder and more challenging every time we recruit, which means we have to work harder to attract the right people. It becomes more and more important to understand how having a strong employer brand that offers attractive opportunities will help us come out on top in the talent war.

What DO you want??

As recruiters, we need to know exactly what we want in our new colleagues to know what to look for in the first place. Being realistic about the role and aligning our expectations will aid us when searching for candidates.

One of the most important things in hiring new team members is to remember that you are hiring someone you will work with 40+ hours per week. This means that working with this person would need to be effective, but more importantly fun and inspirational. I find this even more difficult to identify. We are all looking for committed employees, however, how do you evaluate this into your selection process? Commitment is difficult to see in 1, 2 or 3 interviews, this becomes evident in the long run. Most of us feel we offer a great work environment, but does it fit the values of the person you hire as well.

How I handle this in the selection process is to give someone an assignment, for instance searching for a real job or handling a difficult question from a client. I would let the candidate decide how he/she would like to present this. That will show at one point some skills, and the other a little of the personality. Also, I invite final candidates to the office to join an informal lunch with the team, to get a sense how they act in the group.

Personality can’t be taught

Skills can be taught, personality can’t, nor can it easily be changed. And when it comes down to it, it’s not needed, as I want authentic people in my company.

So, my advice to candidates is to stay authentic and be themselves. Try not to answer what you think your interviewer wants to hear, but give your own opinion when asked. This helps the interviewer to identify the right candidate and the candidate to decide if there’s a match with the company. We all want a job that makes you happy, right?

All in all, enough to think about and act upon in your own recruitment process.

The next question is, how to retain these people, once you have hired them? Stay tuned…

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