The field of HR has a lot to offer in terms of tips for everyday living. One of my favourites is how useful the Recruitment and Selection Process can be to seeking a Partner whether business or romantic.
I will start by explaining the Recruitment process and then delve into the insights from the process that can be applied to seeking a Partner. Let us start with one definition of Recruitment.
‘Recruitment is the process of attracting the right candidate, with the right skills, in the right numbers at the right time and encouraging them to apply.
This definition in itself can help a lot of busineses and recruiters improve their recruitment success rate. The right candidate for a role is a candidate that matches a set of predetermined job characteristics that are required for successful performance in the vacant job role. These predetermined job characteristics are referred to as a job profile and will include the technical and behavioural competencies as well as educational and work experience required for successful performance on the role. Job profiling a role may be the most crucial part of the recruitment process. Can you guess why? Because it forms the basis of the Recruitment Search.
If you develop an erroneous profile then your candidate search is faulty from the onset causing you to use methods that attract the wrong type of candidate and spending all your time searching for the wrong type of person. Thus, in developing a good profile, you need to ask the employer the right questions around the ideal candidate. You may need to ask some tough questions that the client has not considered but are in their unconscious especially when it comes to culture and behavioural related
characteristics e.g. I have worked with clients who require candidates with international exposure or candidates with local street intelligence. These are both behavioural based competencies that can be easily overlooked but are very important. Ignoring them may mean spending weeks searching for
candidates only for them to be interviewed before you find out you need to make changes to the job profile. Without a good understanding of the job role, which will help in developing a good profile you will waste a lot of precious time that will cost as well as frustrate both the Recruiter and Employer.
In addition to developing a good job profile, a good recruitment process must involve developing a Recruitment Strategy. A recruitment strategy involves simply planning and outlining how you intend to attract the kind of people required for the advertised role – the right candidates. Take some time to think through the profile and plan the best methods for attracting suitable candidates in the shortest possible time. What this means is if as a Recruiter you are getting the wrong kind of candidates applying for a role then you are probably using the wrong attraction methods which implies your recruitment strategy is ineffective. Perhaps you are advertising the vacancy in the wrong place or even advertising a
role that should not be advertised e.g headhunting is more effective for Senior Management roles. You must always be conscious of the recruitment process being time bound, attracting the right candidates 3 months later than you need them is indicative of an inefficient recruitment process. You must always think how can I find the right candidate in the shortest possible time. Good questions to ask yourself are; Are my chosen recruitment methods effective in attracting the right candidate? What is
the most effective and efficient method to attract such candidates? Where exactly should I be looking for this candidate profile? Should I ask my network, search a database or advertise? If I advertise where should my advert be publicised? If I have advertised will my advert attract the right kind of people and encourage them to apply?
Remember exposing your advert to the wrong circles will cause you to receive unqualified applications or insufficient applications. As an experienced recruiter you should have built a good network and database of candidates over time which can help you get quick referrals. If you are just starting out it is ok to advertise as a means if building a database but do so in the right places. Job profiling and publicising your job vacancy are probably the toughest part of recruitment process. Getting these steps right should give you a good shortlist.
Another often overlooked but very important elements of attracting the right candidates is the Employee Value Proposition (EVP) and Employer Brand. They both represent what the employer has to offer in terms of unique often intangible benefits. The EVP may include benefits such as career growth, work life balance, culture of excellence etc. A positive EVP and employer brand go a long way in attracting candidates especially those who may share the companies values. 2 good questions to ask with respect to an Employer’s EVP is What unique benefits can the emploter offer the right candidates? Will the right candidates find the employer an attractive place to work.
However after the Recruitment processs comes the selection process.The selection process involves selecting the best candidate for the role. There are 2 bad scenarios that can occur here if your selection methods are not carefully chosen; selecting the wrong candidate or rejecting the right candidate. You can make a poor selection decision by using the unreliable selection tools. Choose selection methods and tools that help you assess the competency requirements for the role. Selection methods broadly fall
into 3 categories; cognitive ability tests such as aptitude tests, interviews and personality tests. Would you ever measure someone’s weight with a ruler? I guess not. So, always think of the competencies you want to assess and use the right tool that measures that competency e.g if you want to assess their writing skills give the candidate a writing test. If you want to assess their personality give them a personality test. Some selection methods have a higher reliability than others e.g. Having a chat with someone cannot assess their aptitide for problem solving, an arithmetic aptitude test will be a more reliable tool.
Once you have decided the best selection methods then the selection process begins using the chosen methods and tools to determine the most suitable candidate or candidates for the role. Most selection methods would use other assessment methods like technical or aptitude tests prior to an interview. Interviews are the most common form of final assessments thus it is important to have predetermined all the assessment criteria for a role and put this in an evaluation format which can be easily used to evaluate candidates at the interview. After candidates are assessed, the most suitable candidate can be selected and made a verbal offer initially or a formal offer stating the employment terms. It is however, wiser to do a reference check before making an offer.
In summary, I have outlined several crucial activities for an effective recruitment and selection process; profiling the job vacancy, developing a recruitment strategy, articulating the EVP, choosing the right selection methods, executing the selection process and making a job offer.
I have just described a very basic recruitment and selection process, tomorrow I will explore the insights that can be applied to finding a partner. I am sure you can already see the similarities. What are your
thoughts so far?
Copyright Adora Ikwuemesi March, 2018
