Do you hesitate and stunt your own business growth because you don’t want the onerous task of recruiting new staff?
Trust in the strategies you have developed to take on more team members into your business and don’t fear the growth – get staffed! But get staffed the right way and make sure you are not wasting precious time, money or energy. The success of every organisation is directly linked to the skills and quality of its people. No product or service stands in isolation from the human factor – it is absolutely the human factor that influences your clients, customers, colleagues and the wider community.
It’s widely known in HR circles that in general, employees do not leave companies. They leave managers, business owners or they leave the businesses that employ them mainly due to the company’s inability or unwillingness to provide a strong work culture, professional development, workplace engagement, stimulation and/or support. Poor recruitment or unsuitable team members in your business are costly, so let’s look at the process of recruiting a new team member and what a best practice organisation such as yours should consider.
I am an industry professional, so of course I believe wholeheartedly in utilising an expert in this field, but I do appreciate that this is not always an option for a small business. If you need assistance in this process, such as that through an experienced professional recruitment agency, the following are things that you should look out for when making a selection:
- The agency should be aligned with, and hold a membership to, an industry body that has a code of conduct like the RCSA.
- The agency should be able to articulate to you what they know of the industry you work in, and what they understand of the labour market, skills shortages and general remuneration packaging relevant to your industry sector.
- The agency should ask you for either the selection criteria or position descriptions for the roles you are looking to recruit into so that they can use these as their recruiting tool. If they are a well-rounded agency with HR knowledge, they should also be able to assist you with creating selection criteria or position descriptions if you don’t already have them in place.
- The agency should express a genuine interest in learning about your workplace culture and environment. Transparency is critical, so for the recruiter to do the best job possible for you, you will need to share with them all the key information about the business.
- The agency should be able to provide you with a timeframe within which to present you with a shortlisted selection of candidates for your consideration.
- The agency should be in regular communication with you, keeping you updated on the process.
- The candidates that you are considering should be thoroughly assessed against your position and workplace cultural requirements. This should include a number of elements including skills testing, validation of reference and qualification information and where appropriate or required, personality profiling data.
- They should have both a client care and candidate care program in place. There needs to be consideration taken by the agency when referring a candidate to you. Candidates must be advised and agree to be referred to your organisation.
- If they stand behind their service, they should provide a replacement guarantee.
Our end-to end exclusive recruitment timeframe is 12.54 working days and our retention rate for placements is 91%. These are key elements you need to establish with your recruiter in order to determine how well you can expect them to perform in terms of finding you a quality candidate within a reasonable amount of time.
Tips
Choosing a specialist recruiter to work with exclusively will allow you to have the full commitment of the recruiter, enabling them to access the best talent by focusing on the quality instead of speed!
