The desire to find the absolute best fit can cause many companies to take too long with the recruiting process, losing the interest of valuable candidates along the way. But you don’t want to move so quickly that you’re careless and end up hiring the wrong person. It’s a balancing act to be sure, and an important one to get right.

Here are some tips for recruiting and hiring correctly and coming out the other end with quality employees.

Tip #1: Organize Your Recruiting Funnel in Advance

You need to be as organized as possible, and have everything set up so that you can hit the ground running as soon as you announce the open position. First thing’s first, make sure that you write the perfect job description so that you attract the right people for the position.

Once you feel ready, announce the open position across multiple channels, including job boards, your careers page, social media, and throughout your network and that of your employees.

You should be ready to handle the onslaught of applications and resumes, and make sure to keep the process both streamlined and focused on the candidates. Every candidate should know where they are in the process at all times. From the submission of their resume to final interviews, communicate as much with each candidate as you would with a potential customer you were trying to attract.Read more about how to organize your recruiting funnel.

Tip #2: Don’t Ignore Passive Talent

Especially with the low unemployment rates of today, many of the most promising candidates for your open position may not be actively looking. This doesn’t mean, of course, that they are totally unavailable — it just means that you must focus on the passive talent pool.

One great way to access passive talent is through recruiters. Recruiting firms maintain databases of all of their current and past job seekers, and know who to reach out to for every type of job opening. They also scour LinkedIn and can contact members whose profiles allow for recruiter contact even if they are not actively job seeking. This will open up a whole world of qualified candidates you might otherwise miss.

Another great source for passive candidates are your own employees. Employee referrals are one of the most common sources of great employees. In fact, a study by JobVite revealed that 46 percent of employee referred hires stayed with their new employer for at least one year after being hired, as compared to 33 percent of new hires from career sites and 22 percent from job boards.

A third way to access passive talent is via your social media. Followers of your company on social media sites might be compelled to apply for open positions if they are otherwise engaged with your social media presence and the employer brand you project.

Tip #3: Offer Competitive Salary and Benefits

This one should be a no brainer, but you might be surprised how many companies approach the recruiting process with a mindset of “how little can I pay for a good employee.” You must remember that you get what you pay for — that’s just how things work. You might be able to find someone who is in a unique situation and ends up accepting less salary than the job should pay, but over time that person will likely grow bitter about the situation, and either leave or underperform as a result. Considering that it can cost 2-3x a person’s annual salary to replace them, these things all even out in the end if you choose to underpay the first time around.

Do market research and offer both a competitive salary and benefits package. If you can afford to, pay above the market average for the position in order to attract passive applicants who are already working in the industry or perhaps in the same position for another company, and will need some incentive to move to your company.

When it comes to benefits, you might be surprised how much benefits affect the way employees view their total compensation package. If you are providing great medical, dental, and health, make sure to explain the value of that package.

Additionally, less traditional benefits are becoming more and more popular, and make a big difference to some employees. Offering flexible hours, work-from-home arrangements, or extra PTO can be a game changer, particularly for working parents or those who are actively seeking better work/life balance. Also, perks that make your office and culture more vibrant and fun can make a difference here, too. Let potential employees know all of the perks of working for you, as every little thing counts.

Tip #4: Maintain a Positive and Active Online Presence

It should come as no shock that your online presence matters in today’s job market. Make sure that your presence is similar across all social media platforms. Engage with your followers when they comment on your page (good or bad), and actively post things that align with your brand image.

Additionally, social media is a great place to promote how great it is to work for you. Posting pictures or videos from company outings or information about charity or volunteer work your office is doing lets people know your core values and what it might be like to be part of your office.

Make sure to keep everything positive when it comes to social media. There are trolls out there looking to fight in every comment thread, so make sure you have someone with an even head and an upbeat voice responding to comments. Some companies can balance sarcasm with their brand, and if you can do that well, that is fine, but make sure that you never resort to interacting in a negative way with trolls on your posts.

Tip #5: Prioritize Intelligence as much as Experience

Deep Patel, Forces contributor and bestselling author of A Paperboy’s Fable: The 11 Principles of Success, suggests that experience isn’t all that matters when it comes to hiring. In fact, he recommends that unless a position specifically necessitates certain experience that intelligence matters more.

It is important to remember that being experienced doesn’t always mean that a candidate will do well performing that job for your company. For instance, if someone has 20 years of experience in a specific method of sales, they may be stubborn and not want to adapt to the way your company does things.

Of course, some technical knowledge does need to be in place in advance of hiring for certain positions, but even there, technology and business practices change so quickly that just because someone knows how to do something the old way doesn’t mean that they have been keeping up with industry changes or that they are adaptable.

An intelligent and adaptable hire who is excited to learn can take on and adapt to whatever your business throws at them, and that is often a great substitute for some amount of experience.

You are only as good as your people, and hiring great employees is one of the most important things you can do for your business’s success.

If you find that performing this process to the standard it needs to be performed is too much for your already busy HR team, or if you simply need some help along the way, CulverCareers is here to help. Our specialty is recruiting the very best people for your business. Contact us today and we will help set up an efficient and effective recruiting and interview process for your open roles.

The post 5 Tips for Recruiting Great Employees appeared first on CulverCareers.

Did you know that the employee recruiting process now works in a similar way? In this age of low unemployment, widespread brand awareness, and social media, methods focused on the candidate experience are being employed throughout the hiring process.

Focusing on the employee experience during recruiting isn’t just a nice thing to do. In fact, companies that focus on this experience increase the quality of their hires by 70% and are four times more profitable than other companies, with twice the revenue.Here, we detail the steps of an effective recruiting funnel, as well as some overarching considerations to keep in mind every step of the way.

Raise Candidate Awareness

Quality candidates are looking for more than just the right job title and salary in today’s job market. Your company’s culture is extremely important to potential job seekers. It is important to project the right image, and to make sure this brand image is reflected across all potential platforms where your prospective applicants might find information about your company.

Social Media

First and foremost is your social media presence. You never know whether someone commenting on your Facebook page or Instagram post might be your next ideal hire.

Make sure to interact with all social media posts, and to maintain a consistent (and positive) voice across all of these platforms. Personalize your responses, rather than simply replying “Thank you for posting.”

Allow your social media to really promote your brand image, and also feel free to sprinkle some information in there about what a great employer you are. Especially if you’re ramping up to a big hiring effort, it’s good to let people know what your company culture is like and why it’s great to work for you.

Careers Page

Your careers page should include even more information on your employment philosophies. From the core values of your company to testimonials from happy employees, your careers page can serve not only as a place to list openings, but also a place to promote yourself as an employer.

Attract Candidates to the Role

When you’re looking to attract top talent to a position, getting the word out about the position is absolutely essential. Your talent pool is only as good as your net is wide.

If you have an ATS (applicant tracking software) system, use the metrics stored in this system to determine where your successful recruits have come from in the past. If specific job sites seem to work better than others, focus on those. Look at the recruiting funnel as a science experiment that you’re using to gather information and improve your process every time.

Of course, there are some tried-and-true standards, and even if you don’t have an ATS, you should focus on the following areas to cover your bases:

• Job boards
• Social media
• Careers page
• Employee and network referrals
• In-house applicants
• Recruiting firms

If you have been in the recruiting game for a long time, you probably know which of these have the highest rates of success when it comes to both hiring and retention.

That doesn’t mean that you should ignore your other methods of getting the word out about the role, but it does mean you should place a concentrated effort on these areas.Additionally, a focus on passive candidates is important, especially if you’re seeking in-demand skill sets. Both employee referrals and recruiting firms are great ways to get access to passive candidates who may not notice when you post new jobs.

Make the Application Process Efficient and Effective

Gone are the days of making potential employees jump over a bunch of hurdles before getting their resume to you. Talented candidates have many options when it comes to where to apply, and if you make the process too difficult, they will simply stop midway through and never turn back. In fact, CareerBuilder.com notes that “candidates expect a fast and easy application experience. Job seekers today are not willing to fill out multiple application pages, especially on a mobile device.”

Rather than testing to see whether a candidate is serious by asking that they fill out an application in addition to submitting their resume, many employers are going in the opposite direction and allowing one-click applications via LinkedIn and other job search websites.

This is the point where active communication should begin! Let applicants know that you have received their application and what the next steps will be, if any.

Conduct Phone Screens and Interviews

The most important thing during the screening and interviewing process, from a candidate’s perspective, is transparency and communication. Make sure to set clear expectations and deliver on them. If things are taking longer than expected, communicate that! You are potentially not the only employer your candidate has applied to, and if you drop communication, they may take you out of the running.

This comes down to respect. If you end up hiring this person, you want them to look back on the interview process as a positive one. If you don’t end up hiring this person, you still want them to look back on the interview process as positive because they may interact with your company in other ways, and they may be a viable candidate for a future position.

Also, during your interviews, make sure to discuss the compensation range at some point mid- to early-on. In the same way that you spend time and thought on the job description because it lays out clear expectations, salary is a make-or-break component of job offers, and it only hurts both parties to drag things on if there is a major disparity between the number they’re expecting and the number you can afford to offer.

Make an Offer

If you have maintained proactive communication throughout this process, and found a candidate who is excited about your company culture, this last step should go over flawlessly. You will hopefully end up with an employee who is excited to start work, and a short salary negotiation period, if any, due to the transparency earlier in the interview process.

Just as marketers and salespeople focus on the journey of a potential buyer, it is up to recruiters to pay heed to the journey of their candidates.

Promote your brand and company culture, recruit across a variety of platforms, make the application process painless, and demonstrate respect and transparency throughout the interview process and you will set up a recruiting funnel that candidates leave happy and excited to join your company.

If you need help setting up your recruiting funnel, CulverCareers is here to help every step of the way. Let us help pair you up with top sales and marketing talent, while helping you refine the recruiting funnel and improve the employee experience.

The post How to Use a Recruiting Funnel to Attract and Secure Top Talent appeared first on CulverCareers.