As specialist IT recruitment consultants, we are constantly telling our clients that “time spent on the hiring process is time well spent”.
Recruiting the wrong staff can cost an organisation A LOT of money. On average, UK companies throw away £8,200 every time they hire a candidate that isn’t right for their company.
And that’s just the average! Some organisations lose as much as £12,000 when they appoint the wrong people into senior manager and director roles!
Due to skills shortages, the IT jobs market is a tough competitive place at the moment and finding the right candidate has always been much more of an art than an exact science anyway. However, you can improve your chances of recruiting good employees by implementing these tried and tested approaches.
- The Position: One of the most common reasons for high turnover in a particular position is because the job description does not match the role in real life. Make sure your job description is clear, that it outlines experience and qualifications requirements, and that is rewritten with specific responsibilities and accountabilities every time you advertise a new role.
- The Candidate Search: The skills scarcity among IT candidates means that recruiters, HR managers and employers are having to cast their nets wider and wider to catch the staff they want. This means you need a large network of good contacts and a strong digital strategy for marketing the roles online. To attract the best candidates smart companies are partnering with specialist IT recruiters that will do a lot of the leg work for them. Established IT recruitment agencies have large ready-made networks, they will conduct extensive searches of job boards on your behalf, and they will eliminate unqualified and unsuitable candidates so you don’t have to deal with them. All of these processes will save you time and give you the opportunity to interview higher quality candidates.
- The Candidate Interviews: Many hiring managers do not enjoy the interview process. They are under pressure to make the right appointment and they are taking time away from other pressing tasks to conduct the interviews. Hiring managers need to take time to assess character and personality-based skills like behaviour, motivation, and business acumen. They need to ask questions about tasks or situations that the candidate would have to deal with if they were to get the role and discover how they have dealt with similar situations in the past.
- The Candidate Assessment: When you look at a CV, you see the candidate’s experience. When you interview them you hear about their experience and see how they present themselves. Only by utilising assessments, can you see how they solve problems, how they influence people, how they react to change, what motivates them, and how they work with rules and regulations. You can find guidance on how to conduct different types of assessment online or seek advice from an experienced IT recruitment agency.
The key to hiring good solid people to your IT teams is to thoroughly plan your recruitment process, to execute your strategy with patience (not desperation), and to utilise all of the tools / networks available to your company.
Crimson can create a recruitment strategy for you and we offer FREE candidate assessment days for our clients. Click here for more information.
Crimson is an IT consultancy, an IT solutions provider, an IT recruitment agency, and a Microsoft Gold Partner with offices in Birmingham and the City of London.
