3 Components You Need Now to Have a Successful Recruitment ProcessPosted over 2 years ago by Nick Boulton

Is your business struggling in your recruitment process? You might be missing some key components. Client Server Director Nick Boulton provides 3 components that could overall boost your current recruitment process.

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For the love of God, please get your recruitment process sorted!

It is shocking that companies in this market still haven’t managed to standardise their recruitment model. The underlying costs consistently increase for those businesses and are never analysed and attributed correctly.

Don’t worry, this isn’t a pitch to only use external recruitment consultancies or putting down internal teams. I am imploring you to get this part of your process right to fulfil your hiring needs and save your business money in the long run, despite what you might think about recruitment agencies.

Getting the process right, you need to look at recruitment as part of your business, not as a standalone cost. The key to this success is having the right people, but hiring the wrong ones or not at all can be the downfall of your company.

After 17 years in this industry, I am used to the battering and bad-mouthing recruiters continually get, but we exist for a reason. Bankers had a similar pasting not too long ago, but recruiters are the easiest target.

Depending on which history books you read, the first records show that around 55 BC, Julius Caesar, the leader of the Roman Army, signed a decree offering a generous reward of 300 Sestertii to any soldier that brought another soldier into the army. You could probably argue this was more like the first-ever employee referral scheme.

But more widely recognised as the first actual recruitment agency created by Henry Robinson in 1653. Henry proposed an “Office of Addresses and Encounters” that would help link workers with employers. The British Parliament refused this proposal, but Henry opened his business anyway!

Despite the myriad of RPO’s, Managed Service offerings, internal teams, and automated hiring solutions, recruitment agencies have been around for a long time and are not going anywhere.

Developing a scalable and sustainable recruitment model that can support your business in all market conditions and stand the test of time, you must approach it holistically and ensure that you have every base covered.

It’s like building a world-class sports team or preparing a Gordon Ramsey-style dinner. One star player won’t win you the league, one ingredient doesn’t make the dish, but one missing component can ruin the end result.

The quantity of each component will vary depending on your immediate needs, plans, and end goal, but building that process requires a few key ingredients.

So, what do you need to consider when making sure you have the proper process in place for growing your company? Here are my three components that are essential to get your recruitment process right:

1. Buy-in from the business: This is the first and most vital component—it matters not if you, as the business owner, CEO, or stakeholder, believe hiring is the right approach, but from the rest of the company. Unless your wider management team truly believes it and is brought into the vision, either financially, emotionally, or otherwise, you will always struggle to hire talent. Not only do they need to be on board with hiring plans wherever possible, but they should feel like they are in charge of the hiring process. This allows them autonomy and makes them responsible for decisions, hires, or lack of….

2. Internal hire: If you want to grow your business, you need to hire someone responsible and accountable for the results. They need to manage the internal process of talking directly to hiring managers, making sure all candidates are booked for interviews, feedback is delivered in a timely fashion, and managing external recruitment relationships. Depending on your growth needs, you might need more than one person, perhaps even a team. But ensure they have clear targets, well-defined roles, and report regularly to the business. How else would they know the state of the market? Especially with all those nasty recruiters out there….

3. Recruitment partners: Yup, this is where I tell you that you need to give us a call…

Seriously, you need to make sure you have a trusted recruitment partner that can deliver a consistently screened, tested, and on-point flow of high-quality candidates. Avoid penny-pinching on fees. Judge them on what they deliver, the quality of their service, and if they find you employees that can change the profits of your organisation. They should provide market intelligence, salary surveys, technological insight, potentially an account manager on-site, and any other information you need. You don’t need to rely on them, but you need to have the ability to dial up or down your recruitment when needs require.