Employer Recruiting – What You’re Doing Wrong & How to Fix It

It seems there are countless articles on how to correctly recruit, hire, and train candidates to become productive and happy employees. In fact, it’s an ideal situation when a great hire is made and an employee becomes more than just that, a true brand ambassador for your company. Many companies struggle to get to that point.

According to a recent article, the first issue may be your company brand. When you think of companies that people flock to – Google, Zappos, and the like – what stands out? They’ve built a positive brand around their culture, their goals and the types of employees who succeed.  However, if your recruiting process is inefficient and unresponsive, you’re likely to attract negative attention. Negative attention spreads like wildfire and you start the cycle of a negative brand, especially with social media. Before you publicize hiring initiatives, be sure you’re ready to support the applicants, the hiring managers are clear and involved in the process, and you’re using positive messaging among current staff about the role. In fact, you may have also done some proactive messaging to them first about the role, particularly if referrals are being accepted. Making them feel part of the decision can help ensure they’re comfortable about what’s going on behind the scenes. Again, your employees are key components of your brand.

Second, as hinted above, do not ignore candidates. If a candidate does not meet your requirements, let them know. Leaving them without an answer or responding months later is surely a negative experience they’re often quick to discuss. Between social media, Glassdoor, and general word of mouth, these negative experiences can quickly become the focus of your company’s reputation, even if it was one candidate in a sea of other wonderful things about your company. According to the article, “candidates who have a negative experience will share their story 64% of the time. That’s enough to concentrate on your candidate experience as a part of the company’s recruitment process.” So be sure to communicate with your candidates, as they are the ones who will ultimately let your recruitment system sink or swim.

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