The ABCs of Finding and Onboarding Quality Candidates

It could be time to re-think how you source, hire, and onboard your company’s talent

Legendary former GE CEO Jack Welch once said, “HR should be every company’s ‘killer app’ – What could possibly be more important than who gets hired?” In many ways, he couldn’t be more right. But it’s not just who you hire, it’s also how you do it that counts. And after you bring on a new worker, how you train and integrate that employee into your company are also essential aspects of effective HR management.

While building the workforce is one of the most important parts of your company’s growth, doing so shouldn’t take an exorbitant amount of time and effort. Plus, the talent acquisition process should be something that can be replicated and scaled to grow along with your firm. Each major step in the talent acquisition process, including sourcing, hiring, and onboarding, shouldn’t be seen as a stagnant procedure. Instead, look at each of these steps as something that can constantly be tweaked and improved to better fit your organization. Here’s how to start.

Create a powerful online presence in order to attract better talent

In order for the best talent to want to work for you, they have to know who you are first. So, in your rush to recruit the best candidates in the most efficient manner possible, don’t forget that your organizational brand needs to reflect the kind of people you want to hire. Improving your online branding could mean an increased emphasis on social media platforms like Facebook and LinkedIn. It could also mean having one or more executives regularly contribute to a company blog. Or, it might mean creating engaging, recruiting-specific content such as an entertaining video describing exactly what your firm is looking for in new candidates.

Consider doing a quick video interview to pre-screen candidates

Hiring managers often see a lot of candidates who seem to have relevant skills or experience, but they only have the time to actually interview a few people. In many cases, this leads them to somewhat randomly choose who gets interviewed and who doesn’t. Instead of choosing between a formal interview or nothing, consider doing short (10 minute or so) online video interviews with a pool of candidates. This way, you can get to know a much larger group of individuals and get a better read on their personality, all without leaving your desk.

When you’ve narrowed down your top candidates to a reasonably small number, call them in for in-person interviews. This will increase the chances that you end up with one or more individuals that you really like. Since you’ll have spoken with a wider variety of potential hires, it will also lessen the chance that a great but slightly less-experienced candidate falls through the cracks.

Streamline processes like candidate recommendations and background checks

The less time you take with administrative hiring tasks, the more time you have to meet with your team and holistically consider each candidate on his or her individual merits. While this might sound like sweating the small stuff, as your organization grows, a few hours a month of additional work can quickly balloon into a massive organizational inefficiency. Specifically, post-interview and pre-offer administrative work, such as candidate recommendations and background checks, can cause headaches if they’re not taken care of as quickly and as efficiently as possible. Fortunately, both of these processes can be streamlined with a variety of digital tools.

Consider hiring remote employees – they could end up being some of your best workers

If you’re having trouble finding the right employees – especially if you’re looking to fill highly-specific roles, you might want to expand your search to include remote workers. There are a variety of job boards that specialize in hiring remote workers in a variety of capacities, including part-time, full-time, and contract work. While remote workers may not fit into every organization, many companies are finding that implementing a partially or fully-remote workforce leads to benefits including cost savings, increased efficiency, and increased productivity. Even if you think remote workers provide no benefits in comparison to their in-office counterparts, it may be foolish to disqualify them if you’re already having trouble locating quality candidates.

Streamline the onboarding process and ask current employees what they would change

In many organizations, the post-hiring onboarding process is replete with repetitive paperwork that can waste significant time and resources. So, instead of dumping papers to sign on a new hire in an inefficient, piecemeal fashion, consider consolidating all relevant paperwork and sending it by email to the new hire before their first day of work. It’s especially beneficial if the hire can sign the paperwork electronically, instead of having to make their own copies and signing and scanning them themselves.

Since you won’t be wasting as much time with paperwork, you can now focus on more productive endeavors, such as beginning employee training and getting a new worker more accustomed to the norms, culture, and procedures of your organization. And if you really want to streamline your employee onboarding and training process, ask current employees what they wish they could change about it. This can help you gain vital insights into what’s missing from your process, and what could be improved.

Each step of the sourcing, hiring, and onboarding process can always be improved

Just like your company’s products and services, the way your organization finds and brings in new hires should be constantly tweaked and improved to increase efficiency and create better outcomes for your company. Whether it’s improving the way your hiring managers initially look for new workers, bettering the efficiency of your interviewing process, or reducing repetitive paperwork for new hires, each step you take will have big results in the long run.

To learn more about how to improve your company’s sourcing, candidate selecting, and onboarding processes, contact Karp HR Solutions today for a free consultation.