From small to large and well-established, modern-day businesses are becoming increasingly reliant on recruiting agencies to help them find (and keep) the right talent.
However, that doesn’t necessarily mean they always have to leave it to the experts. A portion of the responsibility also lies with in-house recruiters.
Whether you’re a business owner, working in HR, or working for a recruitment agency, here are eight crucial skills you need to help you secure the most qualified candidates.
Why you should always hire the right candidate
Great recruitment isn’t just about filling a position. Even though you may not have the background, skills, or history that your company needs, that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t hire the right person.
There are plenty of reasons to hire the right candidate—it could save you money, time, effort, or a combination of all three. Most importantly, you need the right skills to make the right pick!
8 Crucial hiring skills to find the right person for the job
1. Familiarity with recruitment technology
Both for job seekers and employers, today’s technology has made things a lot easier compared to some years back. With recruiting software, the hiring process can be digitized, from the point of posting job offers and screening resumes to scheduling interviews, and even sending offer letters.
While recruitment software and Applicant Tracking System (ATS) are often used synonymously, they don’t usually have the same meaning. ATS is popularly known to have many features that make the hiring process a breeze for recruiters.
Some of these may include resume screening, CRM, candidate sourcing, deep search, advanced reports, and even email templates for recruiters.
If you’re not familiar with such recruitment tools, you could be leaving the opportunities for hiring more qualified talent to others.
2. Interpersonal skills
In the modern-day recruitment industry, soft skills or people skills are among the top skills employers want to see on your resume. They are considered important by recruiters and hiring managers when making selections.
However, the importance of these skills is not only limited to applicants. Far from that, good recruiters also need to have interpersonal skills such as:
- Active Listening
- Time Management
- Social Facilitation
- Communication
- Leadership
- Patience
- Collaboration and teamwork
3. Networking and market awareness
Having the right contacts and connections could definitely be very beneficial. As a business owner, you could get to a point where you’re able to hire the right talents, based on your personal network. However, that may not always be the case, and hiring could be tough.
That is where having the right insight into the market, and the ability to market to your target audience is very important.
4. Assessing candidate background
No matter what, it is always very important to learn as much about candidates as possible. The success of your job is bound to depend on the quality of the talent that you get.
Imagine hiring a candidate with a history of crime or stealing from their employer? That said, a candidate with the right skills may not be the right fit for your company and vice versa.
Sometimes, it may take years for a new employee to fit into your company’s culture and overcome their communication challenges. This is why you must be very careful when you’re hiring, and assess all candidates carefully. If you aren’t experienced with the recruitment processes, try to use some help from professional companies like Horizons, who can help you with hiring and even onboarding aspects of the new employees.
5. Knowing the right questions to ask
It’s important for any recruiter to have a deep understanding of the particular position and industry in which they’re hiring. This helps you understand the skill sets to look for in a candidate.
With this in mind, a good way to get to know the candidates and decide if they would fit in your company is to ask them the right questions. This can help give you a clear picture of their potential and what they would bring to the table.
Often, recruiters ask random questions in trying to get to know the potential candidate. However, this can actually be quite ineffective, because the candidate may find some of the questions quite irrelevant.
By conducting deeper research, you can get to know the particular position in your company and where the candidate’s skills fit into. Always ask the right questions!
6. Empathic accuracy
If you try to judge the ability of a candidate by simply doing a quick Google search, you could be wrong. After all, the job market is full of misinformation, making it crucial to try and see things through the candidate’s eyes.
One of the common mistakes recruiters make is giving a quick job description. Some will even decide how well a candidate is able to do the task without doing any research or fact-checking.
A better way to judge a potential candidate is to try to meet them in person, so you can best assess their abilities and personality—with empathic accuracy.
7. Understanding social media and its role in recruitment
Social media platforms such as Twitter, Instagram, and LinkedIn are increasingly becoming important for job candidates, employers, hiring managers, and recruiters in general.
With many candidates searching and applying for jobs online these days, one thing holds true.
A lot of recruiters now use social media platforms to seek out potential candidates and engage with them. It’s also important to be updated on these platforms, so you can stay up-to-date about what is happening in the market.
Additionally, there are a lot of helpful software like LinkedIn automation tools that have become indispensable in helping recruiters make the most out of their time. Using these tools, recruiters can quickly identify and engage with relevant candidates, thus increasing their hiring success rates.
With LinkedIn inarguably being the best, some of the top social platforms to find job candidates include:
- Snapchat
- Tumblr
8. Focusing on culture fit
As earlier mentioned, culture fit is just as important as your knowledge of the industry you’re trying to hire in.
If you’re looking for job candidates that fit into the culture of your company but instead find candidates that are not a good fit, your whole recruitment strategy may be compromised.
Additionally, if the culture in your company is not a good fit for your candidates, you could find that the same can be said for your staff.
It pays to be mindful of the type of culture in which you operate, and ensure that the people you hire, at all levels, are fully engaged and aligned with the company’s mission and values.
Regardless of how well you can research, screen, and interview potential job candidates, it’s important to always remember that not every candidate will be a good fit for your company and your business. Nonetheless, having the skills mentioned above can help make you better as a recruiter. It can even improve your chances of getting the right candidate for each new hire.
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