Devoted to recruiting, finding top recruits, and hiring tips and advice

Small companies when faced when big recruiting requirements should always have a solid plan or strategy in terms of fulfilling the requirements. One reason is because of the "small company" tag hence it could be viewed as an advantage or disadvantage for applicants.

Here is a good recruitment strategy for small companies as indicated in this article:

The best recruitment strategy for small company is to offer some kind of the benefit for its employees and business partners when they recommend a successful new hire. The employees like to recommend their friends as the employees for the company, when they are satisfied with the job and the job content.

To sum it up, referrals and headhunters are actually the best approach in hiring for small companies because these strategies could actually see results first-hand hence knowing that these sourcing ways have fruits. The only problem here is to actually find a way to promote referrals in the company and in finding the best business partner for hiring best candidates.

Image source: Stockxpert

Filling up vacant positions through internal job posting could actually help a lot as opposed to hiring external candidates.

Opportunities within the company should always be promoted and posting an internal job ad would certainly make your message get through the company employees. Personally. I always like to prioritize internal applicants especially for the positions that requires leadership and also knowledge in terms of the company. This is because more people that are hired externally has a better chance in terms of being productive with that kind of position.

One thing that recruiters could actually see as an advantage includes the following:

a. cost (it's much cheaper)
b. already a "tenured" employee
c. offers career path to employees


These 3 advantages alone could really make a difference in the company and actually doing an internal vacancy could make the recruitment process a breeze.

Image source: Stockxpert 

If sales strategies were implemented with recruitment then the recruitment phase would be a breeze. Eventhough that is the case, not every company could be compatible with this kind of strategy in their recruitment because of their main focus in recruitment.

There are some companies where they implement a "mass hiring" strategy thus focusing on the quantity of applicants that they hire. This means that this recruiment strategy is more on numbers. On the other hand, there is also a recruiment strategy which focuses on "quality" thus mainly choosing candidates if they have passed the specific and very rigorous requirement which companies have for their vacant positions.
 

As recruiters, we all know the importance of resumes and cover letters for applicants to go to the next step in the recruitment process. If their applications do not contain the important details, the chances of them being scheduled for further processing would be minimal. Many resources to help the job-seeker create quality resumes are available, such as ShimmeringResumes.com.

ShimmeringResumes.com, run by President Paul Freiberger, an award-winning author and career improvement expert, specializes in helping people define, continue, or begin new careers. The company's custom services include creating 'shimmering' resumes and cover letters, as well as providing interview coaching, morale coaching, and an outplacement center.

A great resume is what gets you in the door of a potential employer. Cover letters for that matter are taken for granted because most applicants feel that passing their resume is enough. In some cases, that could be true but having a formal cover letter and having a more impressive resume is actually a big plus because it shows that you are very committed in terms of applying and getting the job that you are applying for. ShimmeringResumes.com will help you create the best cover letter and resume for you. There are also cases wherein just having the "standard" resume won't give you that job because you have to make a "specialized" resume which would really focus on the position that the applicant is focusing at.

Do we need sales in recruitment? Apparently, we need to as highlighted in this article. Here is an excerpt of what was mentioned in this article:

The main reason I bring this up is because whenever I start talking about these subjects, many (not all) people say, “Oh, that is for agency/staffing recruiters!” But I just do not see it that way. If you can see the parallels between the two and believe that recruiting is just like sales, then you need to start benchmarking the most successful sales organizations, thought leaders, etc., and start learning from them.

 

One reason why recruiters in headhunters or staffing firms could relate with having a sales approach is because they need to meet their quota or have a certain number of hires that they need to deliver at a a certain time. Hence the need to have this kind of approach.

Image source: Stockxpert 

Though the point of comparing sales and recruiting is logical based on the examples that I mentioned in this blog post, there are still resistance if this is mentioned in the higher scheme of things.

Some people especially in the management becomes uneasy and they feel that these two should never mix despite the fact that it deals with people face to face even though the end results are rather different. Here are the most "common" reply that most people have when they hear sales and recruitment being compared:

“That won’t work in our culture.”
“We are not a staffing/agency.”
“We have large req loads, so that won’t work.”
“We are all too busy to do these things.”


Maybe if people would just open their minds and see how looking in recruitment through a sales outlook could have a fresh outlook when improving the recruitment process. I don't know about you but sometimes, a new outlook changes everything.

Image source: Stockxpert

Aside from shared philosophies, sales and recruitment do have a lot of things in common and this includes the deliverables which could be found in the two process.

These deliverables could be considered as common but if you look at it, you would know that the process of delivering such results is based on the effort done by the people who are tasked to do such responsibility. What are these common goals? Here are some examples:

    * Monthly/weekly/daily meetings about pipelines, activity, etc.
    * Incentive-based compensation models.
    * Ongoing motivational contests to reward top performers.
    * Emphasis on ongoing learning, execution, and time management.
    * Aggressive attitude about achieving goals and performance management.

Do you think that you are able to deliver these things in your recruitment work?

 

Image source: Stockxpert 

There is a big similarity if you compare sales and recruitment. Though that is the case, does that mean we have to adapt certain rules and policies that are applicable to sales? That is something that is really worth debating for and believe me, this is a very good reason to point at.

If you are not convinced, here are some shared philosophies that both recruitment and sales have when it is being practiced:

-Recruiters prospect/source for candidates, while sales people prospect/source for new business opportunities/contacts.
-Recruiters develop relationships with prospects to turn them into candidates, while sales people develop relationships to turn prospects into viable business opportunities.
-Recruiters assess the candidate’s skills to determine whether they are a fit for the organization, while sales people assess the business opportunity with a potential client.
-Recruiters “negotiate” compensation and turn (close) candidates into employees, while sales people close deals and turn prospects into customers.

 

Of course, as a recruiter, interviewing is something that is just normal to us and there is a tendency to forget the basic things which we have to remember when interviewing. Here is a quick guide which could help us in making sure that we do a "good interview".

-The majority of applicants "exaggerate" to get a job
-Most hiring decisions are made by intuition during the first few minutes of the interview
-Two out of three hires prove to be a bad fit within the first year on the job
-Most interviewers are not properly trained nor do they like to interview applicants
-Excellent employees are misplaced and grow frustrated in jobs where they are unable to utilize their strengths

I believe that keeping these things in mind would actually help recruiters in making sure that they are on the right track when recruiting and not just doing their jobs without keeping this goal in mind.

 

Image source: Stockxpert
 

Some people most especially executives underestimate the HR Department especially Recruitment as an important part of a company's structure. The flow of new hires in an organization helps in maintaining the stability of the company as well as in ensuring that the strategy that is going to be implemented would push through.

Here is an excerpt on why recruitment should be considered important in an organization:

The HRM Function needs to be adaptive enough to react quickly to the changes in the business strategy. When the strategic initiative is started, the recruitment and selection process can become very critical quickly and the HRM Function has to be able to change the mindset of the recruitment specialists.

 

This just means that companies should more or less implement functions which would be of help in the HR department of a company rather than just taking it for granted.

Image source: Stockxpert