Every year, we make resolutions to do things better this time around. And by learning from experience, we do. This is the essence of a new year’s resolution, and you don’t need a special day to make new year’s goals. As an HR professional or hiring manager, you likely have a few ideas about how you’d like to improve your hiring process, decision making, or hiring results in the year ahead. Why not define those as a real resolution, give yourself a real goal to strive for?
Today, we’re here to talk about new year’s resolutions for hiring in 2020. What are your goals and how will you meet them?
Hiring Faster than Last Year
Most companies hire slower than they’d care to. Delays, scheduling conflicts, and agonizing over a tough decision are very common. But there’s always a path to speeding up the process. Whether that is screening applicants faster, scheduling interviews more efficiently, or reducing the number of interviews you need.
You can improve your communication with candidates, making it a goal to get back to them more promptly. Or you can update your process technology for easier-to-schedule phone and video interviews. Or you can work with a recruiting agency that is more reliable at delivering quality candidates that are fast to hire. These are all admirable goals and methods to speed up your hiring process.
Attracting Top Talent
Perhaps your goal is to bring in a higher caliber of talent than last year. In the War for Talent that’s been seething for nearly a decade, it’s becoming more challenging to reach top talent through the standard hiring methods. But you can still reach them. Many of the best professionals in the industry are working freelance or only accept remote positions. You can fish these great pools of talent by making your roles more appealing and reaching out to freelancers who may not be applying but might still love the role you have available.
Attracting top talent is all about using the right incentives. You can offer remote positions, a trendy workspace, lifestyle and wellness benefits, or appealing company culture. It changes from person to person, so consider a flexible benefits plan to customize for each talented professional you’d like to attract.
Hiring for Better Cultural Fit
Cultural fit is an elusive but highly important hiring goal. Many managers know exactly what they want to avoid in the coming year. But to really improve, focus on the culture you’d like to fit candidates into. In terms of work priorities and environment, try to really pin down what your company culture is. Then be honest about it with candidates. If you all stay late and order pizza three nights out of the week, some candidates will love that (good fit) and some will run for the hills.
The best way to hire for cultural fit is to let candidates self-select. Because they know themselves better than you can in a few interviews. So instead, be honest about the culture. Share if you have office dogs, if your team gets a little catty, or if the boss is very serious about typos but brings in doughnuts every Tuesday.
Reducing the Steps in Your Hiring Process?
Is approving a new employee a complete nightmare in your job? Many employers have evolved a convoluted hiring system over the years that could use a serious overhaul. If your hiring process drags on with an unseemly amount of paperwork or approval, then fixing it is going to be worth your time a hundred times over.
The key is to eliminate redundancy. Try to cut the hiring process down to only the steps that are actually necessary to make the decision and keep documentation. Screening, scheduling, interviewing, selecting, and hiring are the only steps that matter. Upgrading your hiring software or working with an experienced PEO are great ways to jump-start your hiring overhaul.
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This year, you can focus your energy on goals that will really improve your company’s hiring process. Whether you want to save time, attract talent, or improve your process, we can help! For more information about better hiring in 2020, contact us today!
