No one ever said that finding the right employee for your organisation was always going to be easy. It’s one of the reasons why you would turn to recruitment experts in the first place: not just to hire better people, but also to learn how to hire better people. At the end of the day, it’s hard to consistently recruit great people, so you need to take all of the sound advice that you can get.

Fortunately, the tried-and-tested techniques we have listed below should offer you some guidance.

Sell the role in the job description

If you want to find the ideal candidate for your vacant position, you need to ensure that your job description and recruitment material together give an accurate portrayal of the role.

As well as listing all of the necessary skills and experience, you should ensure that you are honest and transparent about any challenges that the employee may face. After all, you don’t want to hire a candidate who can’t work well under pressure.

Research your candidate pre-interview

At the very least, don’t interview a candidate before you have re-familiarised yourself with their CV.

As a bare minimum, this will help you to avoid any awkward moments. It will also give you an idea of the positions, skills and experiences that you would like the candidate to elaborate about.

It also is worthwhile to ask your colleagues what they think. Given that they will be working with the new recruit, you ought to ask them what they think the new team member actually needs. This will better ensure that the new hire is the right fit.

Effective and efficient interviewing

When you take candidates to the interview phase, you should be sure to carefully plan and ask the right questions. Your background research will enable you to tailor questions per each of your candidates to get a deeper understanding of their personality and skills sets as it’s unlikely that all of your candidates will share the same experiences and attitudes.

It is also a good idea to refrain from stupid and abstract interview questions. Sure, questions such as “What are your strengths?”, “What are your weaknesses?” and “Where do you see yourself in five years?” would not win a prize for originality, but they will give you more insightful answers than “How many pennies could fit into this room?”