For some retailers, Halloween can be one of the busiest times of the year. The holiday has had a huge impact on e-commerce, stock control and warehouse management systems, and subsequently IT recruitment.
With more customers going online for whacky fancy dress, decoration, food, and trick-or-treat ideas, it is crucial that retailers have the right IT team in place to respond to fluctuating demands.
Finding good staff for your IT team can be a nightmare, especially at this time of year where everybody is settling down before Christmas.
If you don’t want to end up with a department full of mindless zombies, moaning mummies, and employees that go a little crazy when the moon is full, follow these tips on how to source the best IT staff.
- Create a comprehensive job description: The devil’s in detail when it comes to outlining a job specification. A lot like preparing for a vampire attack, you need to have considered all eventualities before the main event occurs – in this case, advertising the role. You just need to swap fetching holy water, peeling garlic, and sharpening stakes for outlining responsibilities, creating assessment criteria, and specifying experience requirements.
- Get technical: You should grill your candidates with some difficult technical questions in the interview. Remember, the interview is not a torture chamber but you should try to challenge the interviewees so you can properly ascertain their skill level and analyse how they respond under pressure.
- Train your interviewers: To give your company the best chance of finding the top IT professionals, you need have train interviewers. Interviews are not an apple-bobbing competition, wildly thrashing around trying to grab the first candidate that seemingly fits the bill. Interviewers need to be patient, consider all the candidates, and ascertain the best qualities from every interviewee in what is a stressful situation. You don’t want to miss out on the best person for the job because they aren’t good at interviews.
- Thoroughly research your candidates: IT recruitment isn’t a witch hunt, but you should look for any information about candidates that they haven’t conveyed to you in their CV or application. Check their LinkedIn profile to see if their career history matches their CV, explore social networking sites to make sure they aren’t posting anything controversial that could harm your company’s reputation, and check their references – calling the referee to verify their words.
If you would like any advice from the consultants in our IT recruitment agency please email marketing@crimson.co.uk or email 01675 466 477.