As the owner of an entrepreneurial business, it’s easy to
feel that the dice are loaded against you when it comes to competing for top
talent.
After all, large corporates have all the advantages don’t
they? Starting with hoovering up prospective employees on the University milk
rounds and offering work on internationally recognised brands, industry-leading
salaries, career progression, attractive company benefits and, traditionally,
job security.
If you are to compete successfully and build your early
stage business, it’s axiomatic that you should get your hands on the best
employees as early as possible and keep hiring top talent as you grow. So how are you supposed to convince people to
choose to work for you over the current giants of the traditional and digital
economies?
The good news, in my experience, is that like most aspects
of running a business, there is no particular magic to getting the best
employees in the door and persuading them to join. Like all things in business, success is
assured by the combination of original, differential presentation and flawless
execution.
Think of recruitment too like a sales process, because
that’s exactly what it is. You are the product and you want people to choose
you over others. And in the evolving business climate small firms actually have
some distinct advantages.
Getting started
If that’s the case, where might you start? Virtually all the
business decisions you make involve analysing information gleaned from continually
keeping tabs on what your competition is up to.
Your hiring process should be no different. And it doesn’t matter whether or not you choose
to use the services of recruitment consultants, the basics remain the same. After all, recruitment consultants can only
be as effective as you allow them to be.
Start building that intelligence by searching LinkedIn,
recruitment company websites and online jobs fora looking for competitor companies
who are offering similar roles to yours. Think like a job seeker. Look at the recruitment sections of competitor
websites and consider how you can improve on them.
Read your competitors’ job descriptions. What are they
looking for or not looking for? What are they offering or not offering? There
may be no difference in what they are offering but could you be expressing to
your target audience the benefits of working for your firm in a more attractive
way?
Attracting candidates
One of the first things any job seeker worth hiring will do
when they spot a potential opportunity is to go to your website. You have to make sure that when they have
found it they see something that’s going to engage them and make them want to
apply for the position.
Candidates may also find you through a general search so,
again, you need to think like a job seeker and ensure that they can find you
easily. This means ensuring your site is
optimised against job search terms which will be much more than just job titles
and should include location, benefits, business type etc.
And, of course, potential candidates need to have had their
interest raised in the first place or need to have their interest in your firm endorsed,
so manage your external profile. Ensure
you are being seen where your candidates spend their time – on Twitter,
Facebook, LinkedIn and in the likes of Real Business, Growth Business, Tech
City News, vertical market titles and so on - depending on the nature and
seniority of the position.
Keep communicating
Keep communicating to differentiate your proposition. Create
regular blogs around subjects of interest to applicants. Enter awards, gain
accreditations such as Investors in People, regularly signal success through
your email database and engage with the press offering views on contemporary
business issues.
As Oscar Wilde said, ` There is only one thing in life worse
than being talked about, and that is not being talked about ` so create a bit
of controversy and encourage other people to do your work for you by discussing
your business online and by word of mouth.
Making it obvious
The recruitment process is also no different to the sales
process in terms of creating a funnel of prospects. The more people you get into the top of the funnel
the higher your chances of snaring the best candidates at the bottom.
So, as well as ensuring people know you exist and are
favourably disposed towards you, make it obvious you’re hiring in your
communications and on your website. In
the latter case, don’t make the mistake of hiding your requirements just in
your `jobs` pages but state them clearly on your home page too. After all, it’s also a positive signal to
your customers that you are growing and staffing to ensure their needs continue
to be met.
Overcoming objections
In any sales process too you will be prepared to overcome
objections. Again, recruitment is no
different. Think about the reasons why people may not want to work for your entrepreneurial
business and answer them with positives. For instance, if you think prospective
employees will worry about a lack of job security compared to a corporate talk
them through your growth history, rising turnover and profitability.
Most of all, emphasise the opportunities inherent in such
growth and prepare case studies of those who have joined and have been able to succeed
more rapidly than they might have in a major brand. Show too examples of structured development
and progression to demonstrate to prospective employees exactly where they can
expect to be each year hence.
Introducing candidates to employees who are the walking, talking product
of this process confirms both your veracity and says very important things
about your relationship with your team.
Culture clubbable
Just as company culture can be the key to your overall success
as a business it is fundamental to successful recruiting. Big businesses and
the public sector struggle to develop and retain attractive company cultures
and are usually slow to evolve to the demands of new generations of employees –
the change for Gen X to Gen Y, for instance.
This means they are often viewed negatively by potential employment candidates.
Use this to your advantage. Don’t underestimate the allure
of a progressive company culture where employees get direct access to its
leaders, where things happen quickly, where workplace politics don’t rule and
where their voices can be heard. This
can be particularly attractive to those who may initially have chosen the
`safe` route of joining a big company training scheme after graduation or for
those who have been working at a large corporate for some time.
Bragging rights
Communicate about the things that might make your company an
interesting place to spend a large part of their lives – a ride-to-work scheme,
lack of dress code, state-of-the-art technology, hot desking, flexible working,
employee-defined perks or a particularly cool or sociable working environment.
Never underestimate too the power of providing something
that gives a potential employee bragging rights with their mates and might
intrigue or even impress parents and family. Such things can be a deal-maker. Think of these as defining your brand and
ensure they feature from prospecting through to interviewing.
Recruitment isn’t something you should turn and turn off. You should be searching for the best talent
24/7. It’s also very important to
recruit ahead of demand in order to ensure people have time to `bed-in`, to allow you to
`hire slow and fire fast` in the case of mistakes and constantly to be in control
of your staffing
Open, honest and
objective
So, even if you’ve filled all of your current positions, as
a fast-growing entrepreneurial company you’re likely to need to hire again,
quickly. That means remembering
interesting people who you meet and making a concentrated effort to keep them
engaged with your business.
They may not want to join you immediately but in the modern
world things may change quickly and they could be knocking on your door sooner
than you think. Also, be sure to keep in touch with good people who you may not
have been able to offer a job to through the interview process on the first
occasion – you may want to hire them later.
Every candidate presents an opportunity through which to
market your company. To make sure this
happens, ensure that the entire interview process is managed impeccably
throughout with open, honest and objective feedback given. You will always end up rejecting more candidates
than you offer jobs to and you want those who are unsuccessful to wish they
could have been hired and to tell others so.
Skin in the game
Get your staff involved in the search and – if trained to do
so – the interviewing of candidates so they have `skin in the game` in being responsible
for choosing their colleagues. Make financial rewards for successful hires
available to everyone. You can be sure your top performers will already know
other talented individuals who, because of them, may have an existing interest
in your company. And they’ll be your best salespeople knowing who will, and
won’t, fit well into the company’s culture.
Finally, recruit on the basis that you want to hire people
that are better than you. That’s your
job as a leader. High performing employees are ambitious for themselves and
their firm, positively competitive, excited by responsibility and thrive in a
supportive, learning environment.
They’ll want to be you and, if possible, surpass you. All of which is good news.
Like all the best deals you should be looking for a win-win.
With this in mind, offer things that you
know are going to appeal to this demographic.
The ability to take responsibility and progress professionally,
financially and quickly if they perform well against agreed targets and being supported
by plenty of coaching and competency training is one of the top reasons people join
firms year in, year out.
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