Find and Hire the Best Candidates in 2022
Updated: Jul 12, 2022
2022 presents a unique set of gifts and challenges for both companies and job seekers alike. How do you know you're finding and hiring the best candidates for your company?
Challenges
Time and finances
Missing candidates
The Great Resignation
Finding Candidates
Talent acquisition network
The Law of Attraction
Job descriptions
4 key interview questions
Signing and hiring
Employee benefits
Company benefits
Recruit HIPOs
Hiring Challenges in 2022
Time and financial resources
When hiring requires time and financial resources, a small company may not have the bandwidth to properly vet candidates. When the best way to recruit employees requires ingenuity during this time of low unemployment, a small company simply doesn’t have the systems in place to seek out the best candidates.
Small companies need their staff to focus on the needs of the company, leaving little to no time to spend on the hiring process. Posting the job opening on the best websites to find employees, reviewing hundreds of resumes, setting up phone interviews with the best fits for the position, and conducting in-person interviews with the top candidates can be a full-time job – and that’s for only one position.
In light of the current job market, a small company doesn’t employ professional recruiters who know how to find workers who are not currently looking for a position – nor does a small company have the connections that come with a database of candidates who are open to new opportunities if they should come along.
You may not be finding the best candidates, despite your work
Given the recruiting limitations of a small company, you may not be finding the best candidates – despite your work.
How to find good employees? For starters, think outside the box. Every company with an open position is posting to the same sites as the rest. While you may find a good candidate from those sites, you’ll also be competing with everyone else for that same good candidate.
While you can look through resumes posted to job sites, that can take time, and every other company has access to those same resumes. The best candidates are probably not looking for a job – but you can still find them online.
Researching networking sites like LinkedIn and Facebook for potential candidates who are not looking for a position is an arduous and time-consuming task that makes it difficult for a small company to achieve. However, this is the best way to recruit employees in the current climate in hiring. Find candidates where they are and reach out to them by selling both the position and your organization.
The Great Resignation and Re-engagement
With a record 4.5 million job resignations in March 2022, the Great Resignation is still in full swing. Fueled by low unemployment rates, employers are competing with one another to find employees. This led to the 6% increase in hourly wages also in March. In the wake of the pandemic, a record 47.4 million workers resigned from their positions in 2021 – voluntarily.
One in five workers say they are planning to switch jobs in the next 12 months, according to a global survey by PwC. And 35% of the more than 52,000 workers surveyed in 44 countries say they are planning to request a wage increase. Finding fulfillment at work is equal to wages in motivation for workers, according to the survey.
Employers can view these challenges as opportunities to recruit workers who are leaving their positions. In addition to offering healthy salaries, businesses can also offer the fulfillment that workers say is equally important as pay. By investing in career development, leveraging bonuses and incentives to show appreciation, and facilitating teamwork among other things, employers can reengage current employees while attracting new employees.
Hiring Solutions
Develop your talent acquisition network
Relying on a staffing agency to help with your talent acquisition is an efficient approach to managing the many moving parts of recruiting and hiring. Staffing agencies not only possess an expertise in the recruiting and hiring process, but they also maintain a significant talent acquisition infrastructure, including a database of candidates.
Staffing agencies know the best way to find employees, as well as the best way to hire employees. If they don’t have the right fit from their database, they do have the experience in finding candidates – even when a potential candidate isn’t looking for a job. By recruiting on networking sites, Staffing Agencies can seek top talent and sell your company’s position and your organizational culture to that talent.
Once they find candidates, Staffing Agencies have systems and processes in place to screen candidates for your company. Whether you need a background check, assessment tests, or phone interviews, Staffing Agencies can handle the vetting process and produce top candidates for your in-person interviews.
While your company knows how to choose from the top tier of potential employees, a staffing agency can help your organization with the stages leading up to interviews. Recruiting can be time-consuming and tedious, but Staffing Agencies have it down to a science.
The Law of Attraction: communicate your brand to candidates
Another valuable contribution Staffing Agencies can make to your company’s efforts to find the best candidates is communicating your brand to those candidates. Whether your organization communicates your brand directly to your targeted audience or a staffing agency does it on your behalf, you’ll start with knowing your audience.
Think about the places online where your audience (candidates) sees your brand – especially for the first time. What does your online presence look like? And does that appearance accurately reflect your brand?
Rely on various communication channels to sell your brand – from the careers page on your website to online events to live chats on your social media page. Take advantage of all the tools available to your company to communicate your company’s brand to candidates.
Job seekers use their mobile devices to job search. Be sure your company’s brand is active on all the platforms that are popular on mobile. Find the candidates where they already are, and share the story of your company’s brand. If your audience engages with your brand, respond with answers to their questions or more insights on their comments.
Clarity and job descriptions
Once you’ve established how to communicate your brand to candidates, you’ll then want to ensure that your company clearly communicates with candidates, starting with the job description. There’s nothing worse for a candidate than putting in the time and effort to apply for a job and jumping through the screening hoops only to discover during the interview – or worse, on the first day of the job – that the job description didn’t match the actual job.
Don’t let this be the story that peers share among one another about your company. Do allow this to be an opportunity to help your job posting stand out from the rest. Provide enough detail to ensure candidates understand the position in as concise a fashion as possible.
Use this chance to further communicate your company’s brand by also including your mission and culture in the job description. Also sell those benefits, including fringe benefits, in the job description. Create a specific job title that gets noticed. While still maintaining brevity, also include a job summary, responsibilities and duties, qualifications and skills, as well as a salary range.
Key questions to ask in the interview
The interview is where the rubber meets the road. While a candidate can shine on paper, sound great over the phone, and ace pre-employment testing, there’s nothing like meeting them face to face – even if it’s on a screen. No matter the question, a candidate’s answer will reveal the type of communicator they are.
What are you most proud of in your career?
Giving your candidate the opportunity to show pride in their work gives insight into the kind of work that brings them fulfillment – as well as indicates how much pride they take in their work in general.
Why do you want to work at our company?
Their answer lets you know two things: how much they’ve researched your company and if their professional goals line up with the opportunities at your organization.
What is your greatest weakness?
Self-awareness is key for any employee. If they answer with an authentic weakness, they possess self-awareness. This also points to a potential conflict with the position. You’ll also learn how well a candidate works on themselves.
What is your greatest strength?
Similar to discussing their weakness, discussing their strength also reveals their level of self-awareness, as well as their level of humility. Their answer will also reveal how their strength aligns with the requirements of the position.
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Signing the Best Candidates
What benefits to offer employees and how to incentivize
Beyond the expected benefits like employer-sponsored health insurance, a retirement plan such as a 401(k), and paid time off, your company can maximize incentivization by offering additional benefits. Not only will your company attract new talent but you can also take care of retention by providing extra benefits to make working at your organization enjoyable.
With extras like free meals, phone and internet plans, and paid gym memberships, your company can compensate for the fringe benefits of working in an office by making work from home easier – and vice versa for those who have to go into the office every day.
Your company can also offer benefits that don’t cost anything but can go a long way for an employee. Starting with breaks and flexible time, your company can provide a more manageable schedule to potential and current employees, making work easier to fit into a busy schedule.
And if possible, your organization could sweeten the pot with child care, stock options, tuition assistance, and bonuses or profit sharing. Beyond salary, there are many avenues for your organization to take to incentivize candidates to accept a position.
Your company benefits financially after hiring
Hiring itself is expensive for companies. Making the right hire and retaining a new hire benefits your company not only in terms of their contribution to the organization, but also in terms of saving money on hiring.
Whether you outsource your hiring or ask your hiring managers to cover the hiring process, there is an investment in finding talent. No matter who is running the recruitment, they need to spend time and money on posting the position, proctoring skills tests, and running background checks among the various other tasks involved in hiring.
When your company experiences a vacancy, there is productivity loss. Hiring the best candidate fills that productivity void. Plus, a good hire can bring fresh energy and enthusiasm to their new team, as well as to the organization as a whole. This, in turn, creates a buzz among employees, and word spreads that your company curates a positive and
professional culture, helping build a positive reputation – attracting the best candidates for future openings.
Hiring the right employees benefits your company financially on a variety of levels. The payoffs are exponential for years to come.
How to recruit HIPOs
Making up the top 3-5% of an organization’s workforce, High Potential Employees, or HIPOs, are those top employees who outperform their peers. With a positive attitude, leadership potential, and the ability to perform at a high level with little to no supervision, HIPOs can bring your company to the top of your field.
How to hire the right person when looking for a HIPO? Start with a big question when interviewing a candidate: Would I trust this person with the company? Yes, it’s a big ask. But there are often intangibles in a candidate that can’t be measured through an assessment test or a resume. Call it personality. Call it charisma. Whatever you want to call it, you know it when you see it. It's self-assuredness. It's calm. It's knowing. That’s your HIPO.
But how to get the HIPO to apply? Or where to find a HIPO on LinkedIn? Find workers who exhibit leadership in both their professional position but also in their volunteer and political work. If a person is on their local school board in addition to working a full-time job, they are already going above and beyond. If they list initiatives they took at work, they are showing a desire to make change and lead.
Reach out to those potential candidates and share the leadership opportunities your organization can provide. Invite them to be a part of making change at your organization. And if a candidate with these qualities applies to your organization directly, call them right away!
Optimum Staffing Solutions is a full-service staffing and HR agency serving both companies and job seekers alike. Optimum takes the stress out of the job and employee search–with over 50 years of combined hiring experience, we understand the business elements and bigger picture of staffing. We develop a deep comprehension of both client and candidate needs in order to find the right fit for you, lower time to fill, and continue to act as advisor and guide throughout the hiring process.
Whether seeking jobs or employees on a contract basis, temp, short- or long- term, remote or in-person, freelance projects or even outsourcing your HR department entirely, Optimum has the insight and expertise to destress staffing and help you succeed. For accounting, finance, IT, legal, marketing, HR, and engineering, Optimum is staffing…reimagined.
Curious how a staffing agency could help your business? Schedule a free, 30 minute Discovery Call with Optimum to learn more.