Wouldn’t it be great if you could just immediately pick up the perfect candidate for a given position – someone who will be an invaluable asset to your company for many years to come?

All too often, though, companies end up with a seemingly endlessly revolving door of employees who leave as quickly as they came. Each time that happens to your firm, you’ll be forced to dip into your limited resources to launch yet another online recruitment campaign.

What, then, are some of the best ways to ensure you hire the right person at the first try?

 

Draw upon your employee network

If you’re pretty happy with the workforce you already have and simply wish it was bigger, why not ask your top staffers whether they know anyone who may be suitable for your latest vacancy?

It may be the case that they do have friends, relatives or past colleagues who possess the ideal mix of experience, skills and attitude for the role. It’s also a cheaper way of sourcing potentially suitable candidates, given that to some extent, they will have been vetted for suitability already.

 

Offer more internships

You might be able to tell a fair amount about your candidates from their CVs and interview performance, but you won’t be able to tell everything. After all, you can’t determine everything about a potential partner just by looking at their online dating profile or going on a few dates.

Taking on some promising candidates to serve internships with your company could therefore be a useful way of getting to know them properly, before making any solid decisions on hiring them permanently.

 

Optimise your careers site

Did you know that we can integrate our own software, Webrecruit ATS, with your company website’s careers section? Indeed, you can take your pick from several careers site templates for this purpose, or instead work with us on a beautiful bespoke design if you wish.

Regardless, your site’s careers page is an important frontier for contact with potential candidates. So, it’s worth asking yourself whether it looks good and is informative about precisely what you require from potential applicants. In short, are the right people likely to be attracted to it?

 

Write compelling job adverts

In the current climate in particular, there are a lot of job listings online, but not always a lot of truly top-calibre candidates to compete for. It’s therefore crucial to ensure your own firm’s job listings stand out.

Accuracy, detail and up-to-date information will all help to make your job advertisements interesting for those you are attempting to target. If you need your candidates to be of a certain high level, don’t write vague job descriptions that will result in an avalanche of applications from inadequately qualified candidates.

 

Look beyond mere skills and experience

We aren’t suggesting that skills and experience aren’t important, but they are nonetheless relatively easy to assess from a candidate’s CV and interview. Furthermore, depending on these factors alone could leave you with a recruit whose attitude and behaviours don’t make them a good fit for the role or your company.

Don’t forget, then, to observe your candidates’ personalities for cultural fit. Does this person seem positive, well-motivated, honest, decisive and emotionally intelligent? Or are you immediately sensing certain ‘warning signs’ from how they behave in front of you in the interview room?

 

Do you wish to strike the right balance with your organisation’s next online recruitment drive? If so, our experts here at Webrecruit would be delighted to hear from and serve you.