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Resume Writing

Resume writing is right up there with cleaning out your junk drawer, cleaning toothpaste out of your kids sink and filling out your monthly expense report.

It is quite the challenge to take all your years of experience and eloquently and effectively put it on paper. People never really hate themselves more than when writing their resume. It does not have to be difficult, but it does take some reflection.

What really matters on your resume?
Let’s start with what to not do:
  • Stop taking lines from a job description and copying/pasting
  • Stop using a long line of big words that have little meaning to attempt to look smart
  • Stop NOT using dates in attempt to not have to deal with your job hopping
  • Stop putting your picture on the resume
  • Stop adding a box with 25 different skills you have in attempt to capture every buzz word you can
  • Objectives- skip it
Here’s what you need to do to create content in your resume that is relevant:
Here is the tactical
  • Use a resume template- make sure your contact information is displayed at the top
  • Don’t overdo the design (unless you are in design/creative)
  • List the organization and the years you have been with them. If you have held mulitple positions, break out the time you spent in each role. Recruiters/Hiring Managers look for how long you have been with a company and the progression in your role/career.
  • Underneath your employer- Title
  • Underneath Title- write a brief summary of the scope of your role
Here’s what really counts:
  • Think about your top 3-5 challenges you were faced with in your role AND how you overcame those challenges
  • Think about your top 3-5 accomplishments
  • Think about the top 3-5 ways you have impacted the organization

    *With these 3 points- list the ones that are most compelling and relevant
  • Look at your metrics and list the ones you excelled at

The goal here is to turn the traditional resume that simply lists the job function responsiblities, and turn it into a showcase of your accomplishments and how you changed the business with your contributions.

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Why Recruitment is Tougher for Middle Market Companies:

Many growing, middle market organizations struggle with finding sustainable recruitment strategies that work. Most of their efforts are not effective, are frustrating and expensive. It’s overwhelming because:

  • More often than not, you were not prepared to have to bring in new talent. It’s usually due to someone leaving the organization.
  • If it is a newly created role, your organization likely isn’t prepared for the process. Although you are prepared to bring in new talent, you aren’t setting yourself up to attract the top talent in the market.
  • You do not pipeline talent, so every search starts from scratch, and it becomes a long, painful process to make a hire.
  • Most middle market hiring teams do not know how to interview effectively and don’t have resources internally to train.
  • There is not a closing method in the process to ensure there is an accepted offer after you determine your top candidate.
  • Your internal team is stretched for time and can’t spend the necessary time to recruit top talent.

Prior to Covid, the top business challenge for the last decade has been attracting and retaining top talent. In 2019, The Conference Board polled over 800 CEOs about the biggest business challenges they expected to face and the top anxiety was their organizations ability to recruit top talent. In 2018 Forbes listed finding talent as a top concern of CEO’s. It’s a challenge that remains during and post pandemic. Chances are, if you are hiring a leadership role, you are going to face the same, if not amplified, challenges you have been in the last 5 years if you don’t examine and shift your recruitment strategy.

Here are some common barriers and some cliffs notes solutions to attract and secure talent that will impact your business growth:

You don’t typically have name recognition with limited employment branding

Solution: When you don’t have name recognition, you must have a good story to tell. Examine your business and come up with a great story to share with the market. Even if you are in turnaround mode or growth is flat, there is a story to tell that can resonate with the right candidate.

Your HR team should be partnering with your marketing team to not only come up with your story but should be consistently sharing your business story and milestones on social media. This will help build your employment brand.

You rely on job boards:

This is the biggest misstep middle market companies take. They think posting their job will get to their target candidate market. Top performers are not looking at job boards, so the right people rarely even see your opportunity. If you rely on this, you are simply choosing the best of whatever you get…not the best that’s in the market.

Solution: You need a passive recruitment strategy. This is how you get your business and opportunity in front of the right people.

You have a recruitment process but no recruitment strategy

Most middle market companies THINK they have a recruitment strategy when it’s really just a recruitment process. Many believe creating a job description, posting it, reviewing applicants and scheduling interviews is the recruitment strategy. That is recruitment process.

Solution: A recruitment strategy is much more complex and will yield a higher caliber candidate pool. Recruitment strategy is understanding the business, challenging the scope of the role, creating the story, creating target lists, creating compelling marketing documents to share with the market, having dedicated resources to capture the passive market, knowing who to network with, training your hiring teams on how to interview and having a formal closing process with candidates. Once you have a recruitment strategy, it can be a repeatable process (with minor adjustments based on the role).

You do not have the right internal resources to dedicate time to a thorough, proactive search

Many organizations in the lower middle market do not have a dedicated internal recruiter. They may have an HR presence, but not a recruitment expert. If they do, it’s common for those internal recruiters to have 10+ roles open at any given time. They do not have the proper time allotment for each open role, so they are forced to post and pray (post on a job board and pray someone that is qualified sees it).

Solution: Hire outside recruiters. They can help you with all of these barriers and capture the market’s attention. Using a third-party recruiter for niche or leadership role also gives the opportunity more credibility to the market. It shows you are committed to finding the right talent. Plus, third party recruiters are the experts and can help transform your business through identifying and securing high caliber talent that you likely cannot on your own.

The middle market often has the most compelling stories to attract A-players. You just need to have the right tools in place to help execute a strategy.

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The Name Change Transformation

In cased you missed it, Bottom Line Growth Recruitment is now The Quinn Roberts Company. To catch you up, here are a couple of videos to view:

https://youtu.be/18lgltfOsn0

https://youtu.be/vedYreK1ROI

I’m getting questions on why I chose to re-name Quinn Roberts Company and why I chose Quinn Roberts. If you listened to the audio above, you will know I named BLG Recruitment on a whim and said words that were sitting on the desk in front of me while on a life changing phone call (which ended up being one of those life defining moments). As the business has grown, it became more important to have a business name that best represented what we do and who we work with.

Something you should know about me is that I’m pretty sentimental. Heck, we named all 4 of our kids after Parents/Grandparents. The Quinn Roberts Company has significant (to me) names in it.

Quinn- Quinn is for my Mom and paying tribute to her and her family. We are a strong Irish family and Quinn means “wise,” in Celtic. We’ve been in the talent market for 20 years now and have gained impactful knowledge of business, processes and the art of recruitment. It was important to include this name into the business. It was actually through the Quinn family that I got into recruitment in the first place. I’m grateful for that! The Quinn family is pretty awesome.

Roberts- my Dad’s name is Robert. I originally had a different second name and there was just something missing. It was my Dad. My Dad took a huge risk when he was around my age. Like me, had 4 kids and a lot on the line. He had been in sales for his entire career and was approached to start a U.S. division of an international business. I remember sitting on our basement floor while he was typing up his business plan. I was so interested in what he was doing and the entrepreneur in me was born. He grew the business into a multi-million dollar organization and showed how taking a risk can lead to the best rewards. I had to pay homage to my Dad who instilled so many values that are necessary for success (especially as an entrepreneur).

When you have family names in your business name, there is pride involved. It not only pays homage to the ones that built me into who I am now, it demands accountability and representation. We have a no fail mentality and deliver results. Our name demands it.

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Job Search Strategy

If you find yourself actively on the job market, or just starting to think about a job change, you need a job search strategy. It can be a daunting and frustrating process. Many do not know where to start, so they just peruse the job boards and that’s their course of action on finding their next opportunity. You are likely to accelerate your level of frustration by submitting your resume to posted jobs. Chances are you will get an automated message that your resume was received and will never hear anything again. It’s time to take control of your job search.

Here are some action items to help you launch your job search:
1. Nail down your ability to articulate your experience AND your ideal next step
  • The most common mistake job seekers make is not being able to communicate their experience AND what they are looking for.
  • Even if you are open on what your next step is, you need to have talking points on how your experience has set you for a variety of roles.
  • Be concise. The best way to make sure you communicate this effectively is to write down your self-promotion pitch on your career and ideal next step.
  • Think about the scope of role you are looking for, size of company, industries of interest and location. Take time to journal about the criteria.
2. Create a target list
  • Research companies you are interested in and create a spreadsheet.
  • Research functional area leaders and HR within those companies.
  • Even if they don’t have a role posted, reach out to the functional area leader/HR and let them know you are interested in what they are doing. Ask for a brief phone call.
  • On that call, let them know you are looking at new opportunities and they are on your radar. List the reasons why you are interested in them. From there, find out if they have any immediate opportunities or if they anticipate any that would allow you to make an impact on their growth.
  • They may not have anything immediate but you will make an impression. They may even have referrals for you from their network.
3. Network with Recruiters
  • You can talk to as many recruiters as you want. There is not a conflict of interest or any need to feel guilty by reaching out to several recruiters.
  • Do your research- there are recruiters that specialize in functional areas and industries. Make sure you are reaching out to recruiters that align with your background and interests.
  • Recruiters know about opportunities that are not posted online so you want to make sure you are top of mind when they become aware of roles that may fit your background and what you want to do next.
  • Send an email to start with your talking points on your experience and ideal next opportunity and attach your resume. Understand that recruiters are inundated with job seekers due to Covid so a response can be delayed if they do not have anything immediate.
  • Also, ask recruiters if they have any proactive connections they can make for you. They are usually well networked and can help you continue to grow your network.
4. Job boards- use BUT proceed with caution
  • It’s ok to utilize job boards to see what open opportunities are out there.
  • It’s ok to apply for jobs.
  • It’s NOT ok to send your resume in and wait.
  • If you apply to a job online, your next step is following up.
  • Most of the time, your resume goes into the declined folder without anyone even looking at your resume (reason #390 AI isn’t always our friend).
  • Do your research and determine who the functional area leader is of the open role as well as HR. Send an email letting them know you applied, why you are interested, ask for a call (that part is VERY important… no ask, no get!) AND attach your resume.

Always remember, you are going to be an amazing asset with your next employer. The job search can be discouraging. The feeling of rejection can be tough. Just remember, if you get declined for an opportunity, think of it as a favor. You can have clarity that it was not where your career is going, and you can focus on taking steps to find the right fit.

Do not get stuck in the job board black hole. Use it as a tool but use the above tips to form a strategy. You are in control of your job search! You got this!

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Three Outdated Recruitment Approaches

Top 3 Outdated Approaches That are Preventing You from Getting the Best Leaders for Your Organization:

1. Posting your job as the main strategy for sourcing talent

I very rarely post opportunities I am working on. Why? A-players, meaning people who are performing at the height of their game, are not perusing job boards in their free time. You do not get to the market you are targeting..plain and simple.

It’s also a huge time waster because you have to sift through 100’s of resumes only to find very few are remotely qualified to have a conversation with.

2. You rely on your internal recruitment team to recruit

Now let me set one thing straight- this is NOT a knock on corporate recruiters/HR team. If anything it’s a message to Leadership that your organization should not feel like your internal team is failing if they engage with a 3rd party recruitment partner. I’m going to repeat that… your internal team is NOT failing if they engage with a 3rd party recruitment partner. Why? Internal recruitment/hr teams are often tagged with an abundance of open roles and other responsibilities.

To effectively go to market and identify and qualify top talent, you need dedicated resources that are laser focused on the search. It’s far too easy for the internal team to get pulled away from their efforts and likely they are stretched with other responsibilities

Most importantly, 3rd party recruitment partners come with other incentives:
  • They work as a brand ambassador for you.
  • They are marketing the role in a different way, with a different angle that can get the attention of the passive market.
  • They can recruit competitor talent. It is not a good look for your team to directly recruit competitor talent. Leave that to a recruitment partner.
  • An outside recruiter also has a different relationship with the candidate. Candidates are more open with third party recruiters than they are with your internal team. We find out things in the process and they share more with us which helps us continue to determine if they are the right fit.
3. Your job description-it is likely that it’s not doing your any favors

Most job descriptions are super bland, boring and a combination of words that don’t make a lot of sense. The job description needs to be your marketing piece- for your organization and for the open opportunity. The passive market needs to be compelled by what they read…not bored by it. If it is a typical, outdated job description, it won’t get a second look by the type of candidate you need in your organization.

If your organization is guilty of any or all of these outdated approaches, it’s time to rethink your recruitment strategy.

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The NFL Draft and Recruitment

I love the NFL Draft!

Draft Day is amazing! The preparation. The research. The excitement around who your team will select. Seeing how excited the selected person is. The organization immediately starts planning the strategy with this new addition to the team. It just doesn’t get much better (besides actual playing of course)!

You get the same feeling when you think about recruitment, right? Wait..what…you don’t?! (GASP!) Recruitment should feel like Draft Day EVERY.SINGLE.TIME!

Sure, it’s not always ideal circumstances when you need to recruit. You cannot dwell on it and let it dampen your enthusiasm to bring in a game changer! Brett Favre left the Packers and look how that worked out for them (although my Dad never fully recovered).

The anticipation of bringing new talent to your team should be exciting. There are so many possibilities of how a new team member can impact the organization. When you infuse the right talent, revenue grows.

If you don’t feel this excitement, it’s likely you don’t have the right recruitment strategy and/or recruitment partner.

If you need to freshen up your recruitment/draft strategy, shoot me a message and we can schedule a call to discuss.

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Clorox Wipes and Sales Recruitment

Hiring good sales talent is like trying to find Clorox wipes right now. Both are nearly impossible to find.

You may see a social media post that a nearby store has restocked…but by the time you get there, they are gone. Clorox wipes will one day hit the shelves again, but top sales talent will remain as hard to secure…so remember this feeling!

I was at the store a few weeks ago and spotted them- two glorious canisters of disinfectant wipes left on the shelf. I was so excited that I didn’t even look closely at the packaging. Sure, it wasn’t Clorox brand…BUT I FOUND CLEANING WIPES! Two snaps for me!

I’ve never been more excited to clean my house.

I opened the canister and was struck with the worst smell flowing out and a very strange texture to the tissue. They may have looked like Clorox Wipes on the outside…but they were something very different and not at all what I expected or needed. The disappointment was real as I tossed them in the garbage.

I need disinfectant wipes NOW! Why didn’t I look earlier to stock up?

This is how sales recruitment goes ALL.THE.TIME… not just in a pandemic.

To hire the best sales talent for your organization, you have to understand you can’t just launch a search and expect to find the right fit quickly. It is a courting process. If you launch a reactive search, you’ll experience recruitment fatigue and likely make a poor hiring decision. Hiring the wrong salesperson has a bigger impact than any other function.

The best sales people are gainfully employed, killing their metrics/goals and getting paid competitively. It takes a significant change in business or lives for them to consider a job change. Timing is EVERYTHING with sales recruitment. There is usually a very small window to secure them into your organization and the stars must align!

They need to know who you are and the opportunities you foresee at your organization. You need to know who they are, what they are capable of. Be proactive! When they are ready to make a move, you want be the first company they call.

Keep in touch with 3-5 candidates in case you find yourself needing to hire. The ROI on this effort will do more for your business than almost any other activity.

It may not seem like it, but this method is the least cost to your business. If you outsource the recruitment to pipeline (which I may be biased, but you NEED to when pipelining for it to work the way it’s designed to), you will likely pay significantly less AND get the Rockstar sales person you need to elevate your business (not to mention, make your life a lot easier).

If you don’t, you are likely in for a long recruitment process, lost revenue and a higher cost per hire.

Whether it’s Clorox wipes or hiring sales talent, you can’t wait until the last minute to start looking.

To learn more about pipelining contact me at: allie@quinn-roberts.com

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To All My HR Friends Out There- NOW is YOUR Time to Shine

Covid-19 has overturned the business world. No one was prepared for this and business leaders are making decisions without a lot of information, with a ton of unknowns and doing so very quickly. The workforce swiftly went remote with little to no training or support on how to work remote.

Human Resources- it’s time to take that crown that has been hiding under your desk, dust it off and place it directly on your brilliant head.

It’s time to LEAD your organization…not only in navigating the pandemic, but in developing your employees for the future.

As a traditionally undervalued function, now is your time to show the business exactly how you can be an integral part in getting through this pandemic and beyond. The opportunities are endless to make an enormous impact on this transition of workforce.

I always say, there are about 30 jobs within HR. All of them are important pieces to keeping an organization running effectively. Here are a few that are critical while we navigate through these unchartered waters:

Find new innovative ways to engage.
  • Your organization is now dispersed, working in unfamiliar scenarios. Some will love it, some will struggle. Find ways to engage to make sure the team feels a sense of collaboration and teamwork. Arm your leadership with tools on how to manage remotely.
Implement Virtual On-Boarding
  • There are still critical roles to be filled and how you lead the organization to ensure that still happens, will be key.
  • Revolutionize this process so it can happen virtually. You will be the hero if you can successfully implement virtual on-boarding.
Change Management
  • Your organization is craving structure around the change happening.
  • You are hearing these 2 words more than ever and now is the time to strategize and execute. The operational plan has shifted and you have an opportunity to be the change management force to re-align and deploy strategies.
Employment branding
  • How your organization is responding to this crisis will have an incredible ripple effect with your employment brand.
  • Communicate just not internally, but also externally to show how your company is reacting.
  • If you are hiring, shout it from the rooftops. If you are in a position where you need to lay-off, do so with as much grace as possible. Check in regularly with those impacted.
  • When candidates are interviewing with your company in 6 months and they ask you how you handled Covid-19, make sure you can answer with pride. (and if you aren’t handling it well, you can be sure it’ll be documented on Glassdoor)
Pipelining Talent
  • We are really good at quickly forgetting on going challenges when trumped by a gigantic challenge.
  • Remember how difficult it has been for the last several years to find and hire top talent? It has literally been the number pain point in businesses across the country. Now is the time to invest in pipelining talent. Don’t forget this during a short-term crisis.
Continue to Provide General HR Guidance
  • YOU are the expert. Your people need you now more than ever.

This is a great opportunity for HR to truly be the Knight in Shining Armor. It really is.

One of the biggest challenges we are all facing is the unknown. It is the role of HR to create some sense of calm and confidence so people can be productive and achieve their highest potential in a temporary, but new business climate. How you lead your organization will have lasting impact.

You got this!

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The Compensation Conundrum Continued

From the last blog post we shared it is not a best practice to share a compensation range with candidates. It is, however, imperative to have the conversation about comp and it should happen in the first phone call. This is probably the most important conversation in the recruitment process. Let’s make sure you, as the candidate, are not wasting your time. At the same time, the recruiter should not get farther into the process without knowing because they are wasting their time and the client’s time if compensation is not competitive. Great-we can all agree it’s in the best interest of everyone’s time to have this conversation. So why do so many candidates loathe this question….and why do candidates feel they should not disclose their comp?

Candidates- Get.Over.It! Here’s why:
  1. Projected pay ranges are just that- projected. Company’s often have a range that can stretch 10-50k. For real. Most of the time, clients want to see a range of experience to really determine what they need. If a candidate is coming from the same industry, they may hold more value and have less ramp up time. If a candidate is making a career transition, that can play into offered comp. They may be coming from a smaller organization into a much larger one which will likely reflect a change in how comp is structured. You can’t compare candidates like the old apples to apples scenario. There are a lot of factors at play.
  2. If you hear a range of 150-200k and you get offered 160k, aren’t you going to be peeved that you aren’t getting offered the higher end of the range? Like, how do they not see you as the superstar you are?! It’s on a different scale, but there is a reason Steph Curry gets paid more than any other Guard in the NBA. You can use any professional athlete in any particular position. There are performance factors at play and how they can impact the team. Therefore, comp varies in that position. You can also look at celebrity actors. There’s a reason Brad Pitt or Scarlett Johansson make $20M a film versus some lesser known actors who may make $5M. Point is, the experience you bring and how it will affect their business, plays a big factor in what they will offer you.
  3. One of the best measures of a candidate’s business acumen comes out in conversation around compensation. As a candidate, you want to get paid what you are worth…and you SHOULD! It’s the job of the Recruiter to understand the scope of your role, the impact you have made in your career and how your career has evolved to where you are today. It is also the job of a Recruiter to help you get to a competitive offer. Think of a Recruiter as your agent (I’m not talking Corporate Recruiters or In-house recruiters. I’m talking third party recruiters.. don’t know the difference? That’s coming in the next blog post. Stay tuned). It’s ok to share your compensation structure and numbers. Don’t assume it will put you in a box and you won’t get the offer you are looking for. If you withhold this information, it tells us something about you and it’s likely you won’t even get a shot at the opportunity.
  4. Why would a company that you don’t even work for, disclose any information that has to do with financials? Think about that.
  5. It saves everyone time which is your most valuable resource.

High performers deserve to be paid what they are worth. Just because a company does not want to disclose a range does not mean they will try to low ball you. This will be a topic people passionately disagree on. Our advice is to be transparent for the reasons we listed above. If you need advice on how to best disclose the numbers, call us anytime.

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What the heck is going on in recruitment? And.. What to do about it:

If you are hiring, it’s likely you are frustrated with attracting the right people to your team. The market is tight no matter what industry and functional area you are hiring in. You can’t seem to get the attention of candidates with the right skill set and your business depends on it. What’s going on?

The talent war is real. Candidates we are reaching out to are constantly telling us they get emails, inmails, calls almost daily with potential opportunities. They are totally inundated. They are also completely under water in their own situation. More than likely, their company is also trying to attract talent to relieve their top performers from working 50-60 hours a week. They don’t have time to talk to every company and recruiter reaching out to them. If an initial outreach by a recruiter isn’t completely compelling, you lose the candidate immediately and it’s REALLY hard to get their attention again.

Once you do get a candidate into the process, you are losing them before you can even extend an offer. If you get to an offer, they are getting counteroffers from their current employer. What is going on?!

Here’s what’s going on and ideas on how to change how you go about attracting talent:
  1. First one is easy, and we already said it- candidates are getting tapped on daily for opportunities. A lot of times, they are for roles that, on the surface, don’t sound compelling enough to invest time learning about.

    What to do: Your first communication with a potential candidate needs to be a marketing piece on your company and the opportunity within the role. Talk about the immediate business challenge, why they need this person and how they will impact the business longer term. If you simply state, “we are looking for an Accounting Manager to join the organization,” or “we need a Director of Operations to streamline process,” you can just go ahead and imagine the candidate clicking DELETE! Sell your company, sell the opportunity. There is always a way to communicate the role as an exciting role no matter where it falls in the organization.
  2. Your greatest asset and greatest risk in recruiting top talent is the internet. Social media, Glassdoor, Comparably, CrystalKnows, etc are a click away for candidates to see what others are saying about you and your company. Whether you like it or not, or reviews are accurate or not, it’s information at the tip of the potential candidate’s finger that could make or break their interest.

    What to do: Do not ignore the significance of candidate ability to jump online to learn more about your company. True, many reviews are from disgruntled employees and maybe it’s not the right reflection of your company, but to a candidate, it’s real. Get involved in the conversation online. Respond to all reviews with a positive note back. Create social media campaigns that highlight all the great things about your people and your company. Videos are extra credit! If you implement one way to differentiate your company, it’s branding through social media!
  3. Your interview style is stale. If you walk into an interview room with a list of 15 behavioral based questions, you are doing it wrong. How can you get to know someone with canned questions that only lead to the next canned question (not to mention, a canned answer from well prepared candidates)?

    What to do: Interviews need to be a conversation that flows as if you are sitting across the person at dinner table. To truly get to know someone and their experience, you need to have a conversation. You can still have an interview guide in front of you to make sure you get what you need, but make it a conversation, not a grill session.
  4. Your interview team is killing the deal.

    What to do: Carefully select your interview team and strategically place them in the interview process. The people candidates meet along the way are going to be the people that either generate an accepted offer or cause the candidate to go another direction. You need your most happy, energetic and charismatic employees’ part of the interview process. You aren’t just interviewing the candidate; you are also selling them along the way. It’s a balance you need to take seriously. Sometimes the Hiring Manager is great at their job, but not great at interviewing. They absolutely need to be part of the process but partner them with someone that is comfortable interviewing and perhaps more personable. End each interview with reasons you like working for the company to ensure the last words they hear from each future colleague is positive and what they take away with them.
  5. Time also kills deal. Once you find the right candidate, don’t wait for comparison candidates or put them through unnecessary steps before you offer them the role. You will lose candidates when you can’t streamline your process. You will lose candidates if you make them wait weeks for a decision.

    What to do: Build out your process before you start recruiting. List out the essential interview team members and if they need to meet candidates in person or if a phone call would suffice. Build consensus on what is needed in the role (this is typically the hardest part and most time consuming). Put in best practices such as committing to group feedback sessions within 24 hours of the candidate leaving the interview. Be decisive!

There is no sign of relief in recruitment efforts. If you want to be successful, these are some of the major initiatives you need to implement. Let us help you position your company for success.