Recruiting

[VIDEO] Top 5 Tips for Hiring Awesome Employees

Discover the best tips and tricks for finding and hiring top talent. Watch a 5-minute video packed with actionable recruitment ideas you can put in practice right away!

VIDEO: 5 hiring tips in 5 minutes

Learn the top 5 hiring best practices in only 5 minutes!

Take a 5-minute break, make yourself a cup of coffee, sit back, relax and learn the best tips and tricks for finding and hiring top talent. ☕

All the tips I’ll share with you in the video are actionable ideas, which means you can put them in practice right after you finish watching this video.

So without any further ado, let’s get started! ▶️

Top 5 best hiring practices and actionable tips

Searching for new talent?

Here are 5 great hiring practices and actionable tips to improve your employee recruitment efforts:

Hiring tip #1: Create your candidate persona

The first step in successful recruiting is creating your candidate persona. A candidate persona is a representation of your ideal candidate.

Before you start hiring, you need to have a clear idea of who is the person you are looking for!

How to create your candidate persona?

Here are 4 key questions you need to answer in order to create your candidate persona::

  1. Who is this person?
  2. What qualifications does she or he have?
  3. What is this person interested in?
  4. Where can you reach him or her?

When you answer these 4 questions, you’ll know exactly who you are trying to find, where to find them, how to reach them and how to get them interested in working for your company.

➡️ Here is my quick cheat sheet for creating your candidate persona:

Candidate persona template

Here are the 4 steps for creating your candidate persona:

Step #1: Start with demographics
Define the gender ratio, average age, location and income for the position you are looking to fill.

Step #2: Move on to qualifications
Define the previous roles, years of experience, skills and education of your ideal candidate.

Step #3: Learn about your ideal candidates’ goals
This includes their professional and career goals, but also their interest and hobbies outside work

Step #4: Define the communication channels
Finally, think about the best channels to reach your ideal candidates. Which websites, social networks, events and forums do they visit?

And there you have it – you now have your candidate persona!

The next step in developing a successful recruiting strategy is defining your employee value proposition.

Hiring tip #2: Define your employee value proposition

Employee value proposition (EVP) is your offering to a candidate.

It is a compelling answer to your candidates’ burning question:

“Why should I work for your company instead of somewhere else? What’s in it for me?”

Contrary to popular opinion, an EVP is not just about the salary and benefits. EVP is so much more!

EVP is a comprehensive offering that companies provide to their current and potential employees.

Employee value proposition template

What else should you offer to your candidates, except for the salary and benefits? What do candidates really care about? What do they want?

If you’re like most employers, you’ll first think of money. According to Gallup’s research,

89% of employers think employees leave for more money, but in reality, only 11% do.

So what is the real reason they leave?

LinkedIn found out that the number one reason why people change jobs are career opportunities.

So here is my actionable idea for you:

➡️ Highlight career development opportunities in your job ads.

Which brings me to my next tip… Create outstanding job ads!

Hiring tip #3: Create awesome job ads

These days, when the war for talent is raging on, it is not enough to post your job descriptions and wait for talent to apply.

Instead, you need to turn your job description into an advertisement that will capture your candidates’ attention and convince them to apply.

➡️ In other words, you need to sell the job.

Here is how to do it in 4 easy steps:

Step #1: Focus on candidates
First of all, you need to be candidate-centric! Focus on your candidates, not your company’s needs. Lead with what you offer (your employee value proposition), not what you need ( job requirements ).

Step #2: Show off your company culture
Second, show off your company culture. Don’t be shy. Tell your candidates why your company is a great place to work!

Step #3: Include a salary range
Job ads that include a salary range get 75% more clicks, according to Stack Overflow’s research.

Include a salary range in your job ad

Step #4: Go visual
Complement your job add with a real-life photo of your current employees having fun in the office. Or even better: Turn your regular text job ads into a stunning infographic or a video!

Okay, so now you have an awesome job ad. But how to get it in front of your perfect candidates?

This brings us to my next tip… Implement an employee referral program!

Hiring tip #4: Utilize employee referrals

Employee referrals are the best method for finding great candidates.

According to research, employee referrals are a top source of quality hires. 88% of employers say that referrals are the #1 best source for above-average applicants.

Referred candidates are also faster to hire, they stay longer with the company and are more engaged and productive.

Employee referral - best source of hire

So how to get more referrals?

Contrary to popular belief, you don’t need to invest a ton of money into huge employee referral bonuses. There’s a better way to do it.

Two words – referral parties. Referral parties, also known as sourcing jams, are informal company gatherings where you aim to collect as many referrals as you can in just one hour.

To make your referral parties more fun and engaging, consider gamifying them. Turn them into a friendly competition between different departments or teams.

Oh, and don’t forget to serve pizza and beer, or smoothies and fresh fruit, whatever is more appropriate for your company culture.

Now that you know how to find your top candidates, let’s see how to interview them.

This brings us to my final tip: Conduct structured job interviews.

Hiring tip #5: Conduct structured interviews

You should always conduct structured job interviews. In other words, you should ask all of your candidates the same questions in the same order and compare them on the same scale.

Why is this so important?

➡️ Because structured job interviews are more efficient in predicting job performance.

Research shows that structured interviews are twice as effective at predicting job performance than unstructured ones!

Structured interviews are also more objective and fair and they reduce hiring biases and risk of discrimination.

Finally, conducting structured interviews will help you save time. Google did internal research and found that structured interviews save their hiring managers 40 minutes per interview!

Structured interviews save time

The message here is clear:

Prepare in advance! Make a list of your interview questions and stick to it.

Start hiring awesome employees right now!

And that’s it – those were my top 5 actionable recruiting tips! ✅

➡️ TLDR – Always apply these 5 recruitment best practices:

  1. Candidate persona
  2. Employee value proposition
  3. Eye-catching job ads
  4. Employee referral program
  5. Structured job interviews.

Thank you for reading this blog post!

I hope you’re walking away with some new insights and ideas.

Happy hiring!

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