This blog entry is part four in Jacobson’s Insurance Recruitment and Selection series, which provides insights into updated recruitment and selection processes and strategies for the modern workplace.
Maybe your organization is scrambling to fill an open position after its Chief Actuary moved to a different organization. Or perhaps the executive committee has decided to add an Innovation Officer to help manage and update your company’s growing evolution. Regardless of the situation, the first step in any recruitment strategy should be a kick-off meeting.
Planning is vital to implementing an effective and efficient recruitment process. Finding and engaging a candidate should not be a shot in the dark. Rather, your key stakeholders must develop a carefully thought out plan. But just want should this plan entail?
Meet with your key stakeholders to set a baseline of information from which to develop your recruitment plan. Ask questions to determine what they are looking for in a hire. What are the skills and characteristics required? What background is preferred? How will success be measured? Taking a deep look at the responses to these questions allows recruiters to build a complete profile of the ideal candidate and understand how they will fit within the organization.
Once you have developed this blueprint of the ideal candidate, it’s time to build a process. Create a target timeline that lays out the steps in your recruitment process with milestones and goals for completion. Avoid setting unrealistic timelines as they can often double the length of your search and have a detrimental impact on your ability to hire.
Build a marketable job description that not only sells the company, but also covers the key evaluation criteria set by the selection team. Include the skills, characteristics, background and values that your organization is looking for in a hire. Engage your pipeline and seek referrals from current employees. Job boards and social media are also great sources for potential candidates.
Make sure that your selection team has a clear understanding of their responsibilities. They should be involved in kick-off planning and setting timeline goals. Ensure they are aware of interview strategies and follow interview best practices when meeting with potential candidates. Consider utilizing a combination of conventional interview techniques combined with behavioral and ethics-based questions in order to build a complete picture of each candidate. Encourage and promote feedback among team members.
For organizations utilizing recruiting firms to assist in their hiring process, it is important that the firm has an understanding of these expectations. Make sure to do your due-diligence to make sure that you and your recruiting partner are on the same page. Set up touch bases to promote dialogue and collaboration.
Most importantly, be realistic. Finding, recruiting and hiring the ideal candidate can take time. Don’t rush the process in order to fill unrealistic goals. A lack of time preparing or the inability to provide adequate attention to the hiring process has shown to result in poor hiring decisions. With nearly 70 percent of all hiring managers and HR professionals reporting bad hiring decisions, it is clear that recruitment is not a time to “wing it.”
What does your organization’s recruitment process entail?
