So you’re single. (Again.) Maybe someone recently exited or was dismissed and you’re looking for a replacement. Or perhaps there have been some recent developments and you find yourself searching for the right person to add to your team. Either way, you know you’re ready to mingle, with the end goal of finding a longtime teammate.
So, according to Full Life Cycle Recruitment strategies, what should come first?
1. Understanding Your Goals
Dating is a disaster if you don’t have a good understanding of who you are, what your needs are, and what is non-negotiable in a partner. Evaluate your situation and having a clear and appealing description of what you’re looking for is vital to positively represent your brand (in this case, yourself) and attract the best candidates. Similarly, a strategic recruiter will research everything they can about the open position to get the best possible idea of the model candidate.
2. Determining and Carrying Out Your Strategy
After you know exactly what you’re looking for, it’s time to devise a plan on where and how to find it. Ideally, this will be one that saves both time and money. You need to identify your talent pools and figure out a way to reach them. When trying to get a date, people typically do all the things a recruiter might. They’ll post a personal ad in the local paper (advertisement for the job opening), ask their friends to set them up (ask for referrals), connect on social media (networking), scour the dating websites (job boards!), visit new places (attend interest groups), and maybe even flip through their little black book (database scrapping, anyone?). It’s also important to differentiate yourself during this stage to reduce competition, since we all know top talent isn’t on the market for long.
3. Interviewing/Candidate Assessment
How isn’t a first date like a job interview? This is the “getting to know you” stage where you might be talking to multiple candidates at the same time, with the goal of narrowing it down to one. If the candidates are impressive in the first interview, they get to go on a second. Just like dating there are different kinds of interviews and assessment techniques: phone calls, background checks (Facebook stalking?), soft skills evaluation, meeting the co-workers/friends, and possibly even technical evaluation, if you want your future boyfriend to be able to fix your computer when it crashes.
4. The Offer and Placement
Okay, here’s where it begins to get a little dicey. In this stage of recruitment, the protocol is pretty clear: make an offer, negotiate, and manage the hiring process and orientation if the candidate accepts. Ideally, dating would be this clear-cut. You have the “talk”, negotiate the terms of your relationship, and then adapt this person into your life. Perhaps if steps 1-3 are followed perfectly you can increase your chances of a harmonious transition.
5. Following Up
After the new role is established, it’s important to maintain that relationship to avoid turnover, which is depressing and expensive, not to mention a major waste of time. Open communication will reduce conflicts or issues down the road. Now comes the part where dating is almost 100% not like recruiting, or at least shouldn’t be. Even in the case that a candidate turns down the interview or offer, a recruiter might try to keep that connection positive and viable. If something changes in the future to draw that candidate back in, or if that candidate could refer someone just as qualified, it’s not a bridge you should be burning.
But if someone rejects you and your offer while dating, you’d be better off lighting that fire and never looking back.
Related articles
- Be social: Recruiting using social media (marketing.yell.com)
- Recruitment: Landing Your Next Manager (rickdacri.wordpress.com)
- Give me an example of… (serroc.com)
- Recruitment – Attitude over skill. (ljsilentg.wordpress.com)
The HR Adventure 