You run a company and you need to hire a lot of skilled workers and quick, so what is the game plan? One option is to get a temp agency on the case, taking whatever workers they send and seeing how things work out. You could also just start looking at whatever CVs you already have on file and call people who may have first inquired with your company many months ago.
In reality, the best way for most companies to get skilled workers is to host a hiring event or job fair on premises. You and your hiring managers can meet face to face with eager applicants who are fresh out of school, in need of an immediate hire or getting back into the professional work world after taking leave for personal reasons. Use these 10 thought-provoking tips to sift out great potential from the disappointing leads.
1. Post Applications on Your Website
If your company is accepting CVs, there should be an email address listed where prospective employees should be sending them to. In the event that you prefer all potential new hires to fill out and submit an application, this too should be clearly labelled and accessible via your company website. The reason for this? You don’t need to have job seekers tying up your phone lines or stopping in at inconvenient times because they heard that you are hiring but don’t know how to go about doing applying.
2. Join Job Boards Online
Joining job boards are vital for companies hiring for positions both online and at hiring events. When you join an online job board, you have the opportunity to fill out a company profile. This helps those who want to apply for a job see that your company is legitimate and it enables them to do a bit of digging before they go ahead and apply. In other words, posting a profile on job boards helps both companies and job seekers to gauge if they are a good fit.
3. Advertise Your Hiring Event
Another way to get the word out about your business’s upcoming hiring event it to post ads on reputable online job boards and databanks. List what positions your company is hiring for as well as their requirements. Give a background and history on what your company does. Lastly, list a way for those interested in hiring to get on with the process.
4. Have a Specific Place for Job Interviews to Stand and Sit
Not all businesses have HR offices where people being interviewed can calmly and quietly sit beforehand. You may be the owner of a grocery store where there is nothing but aisles of shelves and perhaps a small back office. Even so, you owe it to those seeking interviews to have a designated space. You can go to a site like Discount Displays and get a couple of their retractable barriers for under £100 if you want to create an impromptu waiting area with office chairs for the applicants. After the hiring event is over, the barriers can be taken down and stored in a closet or another small space for future use.
5. Always Have a Second Interview
After a great interview with someone who appears to have a lot of promise, you are definitely going to want to hire them. Unless you are going to have to shut down your business without getting someone hired right away, you should try to have a second interview before making an offer. The reason for the second interview is so that you can check for consistency. You want to see if the person you interviewed will come into the second meeting on time, well dressed, poised, and on point.
6. Look at the Details During Meetings with Prospective New Hires
While it is very important to look at CVs and check credentials, interviewers need to pay attention to other more minor details. Is the person you are interviewing able to make eye contact and hold it for a few seconds? Have you noticed any signs of aggression or uncertainty during times of stress or frustration? The fact of the matter is that most people mind their P’s and Q’s during interviews, but those who are a bit unstable always show small signs.
7. Don’t Forget to Explain the Benefits
If you are looking to attract quality, don’t just expect applicants to put on a show. Explain why your business is a great place to work, too. Tell interviewees what benefits they can expect after being on the job for a while. If the relationship is to be mutually beneficial, there have to be benefits for the employee as well as the employer.
8. Pre-Screen All Applicants
To avoid having days and days on end where you interview people who you can tell right away won’t be hired, pre-screen all applicants. When you receive an application or CV via email, look at it carefully. You don’t have to spend more than 10 minutes to see if an applicant is going to have what it takes to succeed working for you. In fact, it sometimes takes less than 30 seconds to tell.
9. Pay Attention to Follow-Up
At a large-scale hiring event, an employer can make contact with several hundreds of potential employees in less than a day. In most cases, job seekers will know that they have to stand out in order to make a great impression. So, another way you can consider someone for hire is by paying attention to how each job seeker follows up. Those who are highly professional will send emails and even thank you notes via postal mail thanking the interviewer for the wonderful opportunity. You might also get follow up phone calls days later just checking on their status. As long as the communication is polite and brief, you should consider putting those applicants on your short list.
10. Be Timely About Making Job Offers
Many employers who host hiring events actually go about hiring workers on the spot. Then there are employers who use these hiring events more to gauge interest and then get back to only those who show the most promise. In either case, employers have to be quick on the draw and let every prospective new employee know whether or not they have a shot. At the close of each interview, you can let each person know whether they made the cut, so to speak. The reason is that you don’t want to have your mind set on hiring a specific individual only to learn that he or she took a job elsewhere because you didn’t clearly state your interest.
A hiring event can bring in new talent and skilled employees from near and far. If you have been dissatisfied with the CVs and solicitations your company regularly gets, it is time to do something bolder. Give those who are hungry for a new job the chance to shine and impress you with what they can do. Those who are looking for stability will most certainly stand out. Moreover, hosting a hiring event will allow you to do a lot of comparing and contrasting. You can see the benefits of doing things the way you have done in the past as far as hiring goes, and then compare it to casting a wider and larger net.