This is an extract from our full guide ‘What to do if Recruitment Advertising Fails’
With recruitment, there are always going to be challenges. Recruitment Genius has discovered that some of those challenges can be overcome by following some simple advice.
Your job advert needs to be highly visible
By not choosing the right online job boards to advertise on, your recruitment campaign runs the risk of immediate failure.
The best candidates could be anywhere and that is a real problem for every employer. So to ensure you get their attention, you need to advertise your job almost everywhere. With over 2,000 job boards in the UK, applicants only visit an average of 2.4. This means the chances of your advert being seen are minuscule. You have to advertise on a broad range of job boards to generate sufficient market coverage. Recruitment Genius advertises on all the UK’s best job boards so we maximize our clients’ chances of success.
Does the perfect person exist?
Our guide ‘Ensure your Recruitment is Realistic’ helps identify whether a ‘perfect’ candidate actually exists in today’s job market. The guide’s intention is to remind you that the laws of supply and demand work just as well in the labour market as they do elsewhere. If specialist skills are required others will want them too, so there will be a limited pool of talent available.
Social media skills are so new that few people have relevant experience. IT developers are in great demand and supply has not yet caught up. Meaning that some workers with new specific skills may not be available all the time or in great numbers.
It’s important to ensure you are not asking for the impossible when hunting for a candidate. For example, a customer in the travel industry wanted to recruit a sales team leader with sector-specific experience AND sales team leader experience who was ALSO willing to commute to a remote location. Realising they were asking for too much, they decided to accept applications from sales people. These applicants did not have travel experience but did have scope to learn and become a team leader. As a result they were able to hire someone from the applications they had already received.
If any of these potential issues sound like a reason why you haven’t found the “perfect” person, we would recommend you be slightly more flexible about your requirements. Consider if someone with the right attitude could be just as good.
Conduct a CV search to see if the ‘perfect person’ exists
Use CV databases if you want to find out if you are asking for too much. There are millions of CVs waiting to be viewed online and this could be beneficial for you. Just remember that it is quality not quantity.
Be aware that some CVs may not have been updated in a while or that some candidates are no longer seeking new employment. But the fact that someone has uploaded their CV shows they are proactively looking for work.
If you want to access all the best CV databases, get in touch with Recruitment Genius where we can help you.
Aim to filter people in
Review the applications you’ve received one final time. Have a look at our other guide, ‘Shortlist Candidates for Interview’ to help give you a new perspective. This will help you see applications in a different light.
It is expected to see spelling mistakes and grammatical errors when viewing CVs. Don’t let this be a deterrent. A job seeker who has stayed with an employer for a long time may not have a clue about CV writing but could be your most loyal member of staff.
Having reviewed the CVs, you may find some applicants worth talking to. If so, contact them straightaway before another company does. We have a guide specifically designed to help you. These include ‘How to Conduct Telephone Interviews’ and ‘Illegal Interview Questions’.
Could you train or develop the perfect person?
Could someone be perfect if you are prepared to invest in training them in the skills you are currently lacking? Offering genuine development can be a powerful tool to increase loyalty and retention rates in your company.
Recruitment Genius can run a quick GIA test that predicts capacity and ability to learn before money is spent on training. We can even run this test on your behalf. If you would like to know more we have a ‘Guide to Psychometrics’ for you to view.
Review your job advert
If your job advertisement is not sufficiently compelling then job seekers will be less inclined to apply. Writing a job advert that generates the right response is very complex. Recruitment Genius understands these complexities, which is why we are so successful at filling jobs.
Our guide highlights two important questions:
Number 1: Why should someone who is happily employed come and work for your organisation? The market place is competitive with lots of employers who want the same people. That’s why you need a compelling advertisement to differentiate your vacancy from everyone else.
Number 2: Are you paying enough to attract the best applicants? When candidates are high in demand their salary expectations are higher too. Often employers are shocked they need to pay more to replace a member of staff. You can read up on how to write an effective job advertisement and ensure you meet salary expectations on our other online guide ’10 Tips to Improve the Success of you Online Recruitment Advertising’
What have you achieved?
If you have followed our advice, then you have gained some invaluable knowledge that you can reflect on whenever you need to recruit. The size of the talent pool looking for work is the centre focus. Therefore you should consider that if the candidates are not coming to you, then you might need to find them yourself.
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