How to Recruit Staff and Fill your Job Vacancy

If you’re a small company you might not find yourself in the position where you recruit very often and when the occasion does arise you might feel a little unsure about the process, how to attract the best applicants or how to make the selection. In this blog we’re giving you our top tips for filling your job vacancy with top quality applicants.

1. The job spec

Get the job spec right! Make sure it outlines exactly what the job is and what is required of the desired applicant to fulfil the role. It needs to contain the daily responsibilities of the roles, necessary skills and desired outcome of the role as well as the remuneration and benefits on offer.

2. A clear advert

Since the advert is the first point of contact an applicant has with your company, it’s important that this is attractive and clear. If you put out a vague advert then you can expect the quality of CVs to be poorer than if you put out a well explained advert detailing exactly what you are looking for and what the role is. For help with advert writing check out our previous posts here. A really handy blog of ours explains the difference between a job spec and a job advert – well worth a read if you’re unsure about the difference between tip 1 and 2.

3. The application process

Whilst job seekers like to see an easy and short application process, you need to make sure you’re getting the information you need out of it in order to make shortlisting decisions. Have you got their CV? Do you require a covering letter too? Perhaps a brief application form would really help identify who has the skills suitable for your role?

4. Killer questions

Linking with tip 3, killer questions are a great way to identify the talent amongst your applications. Put key questions in your application process that applicants have to answer in order to move their application forward. Anyone who fails the questions can be placed into ‘unsuccessful’ immediately, leaving you only the well-matched applicants left to look through.

5. Candidate experience

Whilst your focus is to fill your job vacancy with a quality applicants, you might that you are the obstacle yourself, or rather your recruitment process is. If an applicant doesn’t have a positive journey during their application with you then they are unlikely to accept the position – and worst still will share their negative experience with others. Fear not – we’ve already covered ‘is your recruitment process letting you down?’ – have a read and we’re sure you will have a top notch recruitment process in place in no time!

6. Interview

Perhaps the most obvious tip when recruiting staff is to have a solid idea of what you’re looking for at the interview stage. Having a clear idea in your mind about the type of person you want in the role will really help to place the perfect person. Think about the role from a skills gap point of view, what do you want this person this bring to the role? How will they benefit your company going forward? It’s not just about their past experiences and credentials as much as it is about their future and where they can go. If you think about their future within your company as well as their past, you’ll find yourself with someone capable and willing to achieve within your organisation. As before, you can check out our tips on interviewing and selecting candidates here.

7. Reference check

Finally, check out the applicants work history, their capabilities and their qualifications – not that we want to find any white lies on CVs, but this ensures you are hiring someone capable of doing the job...and it’s always reassuring to hear good feedback from previous managers! We trust you found these tips useful! Don’t forget we have loads of great content on our blog that covers literally everything you’ll need to know about recruitment advertising – whether it’s applicant attraction, legislation, the recruitment process or recruitment technology. Do check it out and if you have any feedback for us or any comments on our blogs we’d love to hear it at [email protected]