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Recruitment is not all plain sailing, you know. It’s not all cups of tea and friendly phone calls. 

Sometimes it can be really tough trying to find the right person to fill a vacancy. 

That’s why we wanted to look at some of the common problems you might face during your recruitment process and look at what you can do to overcome them. 

Filling holes fast

A 2019 study by Yello found that the majority of job seekers (81%) expect the hiring process to wrap up in a maximum of two weeks, while Glassdoor reports that the average length of the job interview process in the UK is 27.5 days. We can see how this mismatch of expectations can become problematic. 

And of course, it benefits everyone involved if recruitment takes place as quickly as possible. 

So what can you do? 

The first step is to get your processes in order and automate as much as possible, making sure that the staff involved understand their roles too. The quicker you are able to manage the admin and move between the different steps, the faster you’ll have that new starter knocking on your office door. 

Attracting staff to remote locations

It comes as no surprise that the more potential candidates there are in your area, the easier it will be to find the right person. So if you’re based somewhere particularly remote, or the transport links aren’t great, the idea of a long commute might be a little off-putting. 

While this is one of the more difficult problems to solve, it’s not insurmountable.

So, what can you do? 

You could consider whether you can offer flexible working, perhaps the new starter wouldn’t need to be onsite every day of the week. Or maybe with a slight uplift on the package, the right candidate would be happy to relocate. Depending on the role, you might even decide that finding someone with less experience but an appetite to learn, could provide a mutual benefit that means distance is not an issue. 

Finding niche experience and qualifications

If you’re looking for very specific skills it can sometimes be tricky to find the right candidate on the job market. Because the chances are if they have sought after skills, they are probably in demand from other companies too. So to attract quality candidates, simply advertising your vacancy on your website or Facebook page and waiting for the applications to roll in is unlikely to work. 

So what can you do? 

The best way to find those niche candidates is to work out where they are hanging out and go to them. Use LinkedIn to search via key terms related to the job and then send a personal message. Ask your network and ask others with similar skills and job titles to share your vacancy too. Alternatively, using a recruitment agency that specialises in the kind of roles you are after can be a great way to tap into a known network of great candidates.  

Recruiting for a diverse team

Building your team up from a diverse group of employees – from different ages and backgrounds - has many benefits. It can help your businesses better understand your customers’ problems, and science has shown time and again that more diverse teams can solve problems more quickly by bringing different perspectives to them. But if you’re faced with a team that is not diverse, how do you get started attracting good candidates that can bring something extra to your business?

So what can you do? 

Using a job description and person specification against which you mark off competencies during interview, can help to ensure you’re comparing candidates based on their abilities. This can reduce the chance of unconscious bias affecting your recruitment decision. Using a diverse interview panel, too, will help to improve decision making and allow for more perspectives to be taken into account.  It can also be useful to place less emphasis on the years of experience candidates require. In many careers you’ll find the majority of people who meet long experience criteria are white males. Instead think, what are the actual outputs you require from the job and therefore what does the candidate actually need to succeed?

Simply being aware of the need for diversity and setting a goal to improve matters is a good start, but it’s important to take concrete steps towards this too. 

Here at Nu Staff we’ve had plenty of experience in overcoming each and every one of these problems over the years. So if you’re unsure how best to approach, whatever recruitment situation you find yourself in, why not give us a call  or email us.