How to Recruit a Stellar Staff

You can feel it, the wind in your hair, the sun on your face, and everything is going along just swimmingly. Here’s the plot twist - your top sales person’s spouse is relocating to the coast, your account manager is going back to college for their MBA, and you’re scrambling to dust off your old recruiting process to fill these gaps. The following advice may seem exhausting on the front end, but if your company commits to “always be recruiting” you would be prepared for these eventual gaps and keep the sailing nice and smooth.

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Before these little gaps turn into major sinkholes (and timesucks) we’ve been practicing and refining our recruiting process over the last 6 years and we’d love to share our do’s and don’ts to keep your company growing and achieving success.

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What’s Important to You?

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One of the foundations of a successful recruiting process is to make sure your organization is aligned with what’s really important. Sure sales and client retention are top runners in this category, but what’s on the inside really matters too.

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Culture is one of the hottest buzzwords in today’s hiring world and companies are staffing with this in mind. Candidates are looking for employment at companies that address all of their needs; and that’s not just salary and benefits. Plenty of new studies focusing on Millennial hiring highlight that a happy and growth-driven company culture attracts the top prospects.

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Why You Should “Always Be Recruiting”

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Momentum. Keep up the momentum of growth in your company and always be looking for the next amazing team member to help you and your team reach your goals and exceed them year after year.

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Fill in the Gaps. Naturally your company will experience fluctuations in staffing, it’s natural. Don’t pretend like it won’t ever happen to you and you won’t be caught by surprise when it does.

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Refine the Process. Going through the process not only ensures you’re consistent in your recruiting process, but it ensures that you’re always fine tuning what’s important, addressing gaps, and making it easier to find the right person every time.

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How to Recruit Successfully

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Below we share the key takeaways that are easy to implement and bring great results when it comes to recruiting and hiring those stellar employees.

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1. Getting Started

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Right now your Human Resources manager is inwardly groaning at “always be recruiting” because they’re dreading the hours spent managing resumes, reviews, interviews and scheduling. Trust me, I understand this as it's a big part of my role here at StringCan. Keep it simple and here’s how.

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Automate as much as you can. Use tools like Wufoo and Trello, and integrations like Zapier. This will allow you to automate the notifications of receiving resumes and responding to candidates. Trello also allows collaboration in a visually appealing way, taking away the headache of managing an unruly spreadsheet. Moving “cards” from one column (New Applicants) to another (Rejected Candidates or Leadership Skills Assessment Offered) is easy and you can set up auto-generated emails in Zapier.

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Don’t waste your time. If someone doesn’t stand out or meet your base minimum requirements, pass. Saying “No” is okay!

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2. The Posting

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Be unique in your job description. You want to attract rockstars right? Then say so! Let some of your company culture shine through to attract the perfect candidates who are reading the job description and nodding enthusiastically. Highlight the top skills you want your candidate to have, some extras that will make you happy, and why they would love working for you.

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Post everywhere. We post on a myriad of sites, including our local university’s career board as well as nationwide career sites.

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3. The Screening Process

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• We use a tool like Wufoo to build out a form that allows us to not only capture a traditional resume and cover letter, but to allow candidates to express creativity and go “the last 1%” (our highest priority StringCan Value).

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• Ask unique questions to get creative answers. Consider asking a question like; “Write a tweet about why you’re the perfect person for the job,” or “Tell us about your proudest accomplishment in life.” Those that stand out and go the last 1% in their answers will shine through.

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• Ask candidates a simple question like; “What’s your favorite thing about our industry?” or “If your boss was a celebrity, who would it be and why?”

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• If you like their resume and their skills are a good fit, now use a tool like a Leadership Skills Assessment, and ask candidates to send you a screenshot of their results. You’ve (hopefully) already identified your company gaps and having candidates answer behavioral interview questions or a short quiz can help you see where they can fill those needs, if at all.

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• Also, if the candidate sends you a photo of their computer screen or doesn’t understand the instructions, those are red flags.

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• Add the screenshot to their ‘file’ for your recruiting team to review at the end of the process.

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4. The First Interview

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The first interview means that yes, there will be subsequent interviews, so this should be short and sweet. You will easily be able to tell within the 15 minutes you’ve allotted whether this person is a good fit for the position and within your company.

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Ask specific filtering questions like; “Why are you the perfect fit for this role and why?,” “How do you plan to be successful in this position?,” “Tell me about a time you messed up at work and what you did to fix it.”

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Ask a hardball question, or two like, “If we didn’t hire you why do you think that would be?” This question is really asking about their weaknesses and it’s definitely one most candidates haven’t prepared an answer for!

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Take your notes and add them to your collaboration tool, like Trello, for your review team.

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5. Additional Considerations

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If your candidate is a still a match for the position, consider asking them to do a very small project or presentation, depending on your businesses services and/or offerings. This allows you to see how they react and respond to requests, like your clients would, and finally how they conduct themselves and deliver the information you’ve requested.

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Remember their time is valuable too. Take care to be up front about how much of their time they should spend on any requests.

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Not only are you always recruiting, but now you’re always hiring the most stellar staff possible! Whatever side of the employment coin you’re on, the recruitment process can be an easy and enjoyable process for you and your future new hires.

We’re rockstars and would love to hear about your rockstar process or to answer any digital marketing questions you have.