Create a solid recruitment with the proper candidate match for your company.

Finding the right employee for your company is crucial for long-term retention and the bottom line. A wrong recruitment can be costly in both resources and time.

How to win the recruitment phase

Recruitment and talent acquisition has only become more central in recent years, and the competition to attract the best talents has become tougher than ever.

So, how does your company become the strongest in the market when it comes to recruiting talent? We highlight three important points you can focus on to score maximum points in the recruitment battle.

1. Your recruitment depends on your employer branding
   
   Many companies recruit based on here-and-now needs. But if you want to be able to recruit the best talents in three, five or ten years’ time, it is important to think long-term and work continuously with your company's employer brand.
   
   

   Employer branding must build awareness of your company as an attractive workplace—even if the candidate is not in the market for a new job (yet). Through employer branding, you sow the seeds and (hopefully) get closer to becoming top of mind with your desired candidates so they remember your company when they are ready for a job change.
   
   

2. Focus on what matters to candidates
   
   Different people have different needs—depending on age, stage of life, beliefs, and lifestyle. Often, you cannot reach 54-year-old Peter with the same messages as 26-year-old Caroline. Your communication must therefore address the various candidate personas directly.
   
   

   The younger generation Z, which is gradually entering the labor market, is typically driven by a meaningful and developing job. The more experienced candidates are classically looking for a job with responsibility and influence, but not necessarily with a great focus on development. Therefore, as a benchmark, titles, authority and responsibility will likely appeal most to Peter, while the development of potential and the meaningful work life will address Caroline more. But of course, it always depends on the individual candidates, who can find different things attractive across sectors. The most important thing is to relate to your personas' specific wishes and requirements for a workplace.
   
   

   Define three to five important candidate personas for your company, so you know what to focus on when you need to recruit.
   
   

3. Invest in competence development
   
   Working with recruitment in a structured manner is also about spotting whether there is a need for a new employee with specific skills—or whether there may be a need for competence development and further training of current employees. It can be potentially expensive if you recruit a candidate for tasks that an existing employee can handle.
   
   

   But in general, a focus on competence development—both of current and future employees—is a very good investment. Competence development is an extremely important parameter for candidates when they are shopping for a new job. It is usually the daily work tasks and competence development candidates emphasize when they are choosing a job—especially the younger generation.
   
   

   You are in the lead if you show that your company is a workplace that cares about making employees brighter and is open to new development paths for them. An employee might begin in the support department but end up in key accounts. Or a customer service employee may want to try their hand at HR tasks. An HR system can be an effective tool here for maintaining an overview of each employee's skills, training, and courses. It ensures the best starting point for prioritizing skills development—even after 15 years.

What do you need to remember to succeed in the recruitment phase?

The recruitment process can be a bit long-winded if the process is not organized. HR is involved in all stages of the recruitment phase, which is why we give you a few tips to keep in mind when you are recruiting.

Define the need for a new employee

When you are about to recruit, it is important that the manager who needs the new employee defines the right role: What skills do we need in the department? What types of work tasks will the new employee perform? The more precise you can get the leader to be, the better.

The job description can be the first meeting with your employer brand

There is a lot of talk about the death of job listings, but 75 percent of active job seekers use the job portals. Your job advertisement is therefore often the first glimpse of your company. If you want to make your company appetizing from the very beginning, you need a precise and appealing job designation that your dream target group will find attractive. Get the communication department to help with the ads, so your job advertising gets a dazzling headline and a fascinating description with catchy messages.

Post your job ad on the most suitable channels

Which channels or media are your target audience using? Where can you reach them with your message about your brand new and exciting position? Prioritize investigating their channel habits. The knowledge can also provide inspiration for formats: Maybe it is a good idea to produce a video teaser for your job ad? Or do some employer branding activities to support the job ad, like employee portraits or social media take-overs?

Avoid bias in the selection process and during employment interviews

Most often when it comes to recruitment, we have an idea beforehand of who can deliver on what we are looking for. But you risk being affected by your own bias. A digital recruitment process can make the selection more neutral, where skills and professional competencies have a greater focus than educational background and seniority. Get the system to select applicants through specific requirements, so you do not limit yourself to certain personality types, skills and CVs, and just recruit 'as usual'.

Give a polite rejection

Once you have landed your new star employee, there may be a few candidates (from the selection process) whom you need to reject. Do it thoughtfully and personally. Call the candidate and explain why it wasn’t a match this time. You can also give the applicant a few tips for their ongoing job search. A polite rejection strengthens your reputation and employer brand, increasing the chances that candidates still speak warmly of your company after a rejection.

Get streamlined and automated recruitment processes with Emply

A challenge that often recurs in the recruitment process and with talent acquisition is the heavy and manual processes. It might almost be necessary to reinvent the process every time you need to hire a new employee.

With Emply, you get an HR system that ensures efficiency and consistency in your recruitment. It strengthens your company's employer brand and ensures that you deliver a proper and professional candidate experience. It becomes easier to gather the right input from managers, maintain deadlines, book calendar appointments, and reuse former templates. Everything runs automatically in the system. The result? Freed up time for other exciting tasks in the recruitment process such as strategic considerations about employer branding and recruitment strategy.

Use data from recruitment to competence development

By running recruitment processes in one unified platform, you can store and use valuable data throughout the entire employee journey. In Emply's Employee module, you can save and store your new employee's information and skills, providing you with a good overview of the employee's competence profile from the beginning.

Use the insights to educate and develop your employees on an ongoing basis. You can use the information for employee development interviews, feedback meetings or similar with a focus on competence development. It helps to create a consistent and streamlined candidate experience, where the employee's skills and profile are seen and defined from the start. And who doesn't want to run appealing candidate experiences? You are off to a good start with a one system solution.

How do you create a perfect job advertisement?

The job ad can be quite important. You must sell the job, make yourself attractive to potential candidates, and list the skills required and job tasks. All in one text. Here are four suggestions for your next job ad.

• Avoid empty phrases. We bet you have stumbled upon words like 'service-minded,’ 'team player,' and ‘independent.’ Try to be more specific and describe the traits that actually matter for the position.

• Clearly describe what the candidate will be doing and what is expected in the job. Otherwise, you risk unsuitable recruitment. A sharp profile must be defined and easily decoded in the job advertisement.

• Forget densely-packed A4 pages. A job ad must be calm to look at and easy to interpret. Break up the text with images or video. By doing that, you also display your culture and workplace by showing and not telling it.

• Use language, content, and design that matches your business. Do not try to be over-smart. The job ad must reflect your values and the company so there are no negative surprises when the candidate later walks through your door.

Four ideas to host a good job interview

1. Align expectations! Make sure that you and the candidate are aligned when it comes to the job profile so that neither of you will be disappointed in the long run.

2. Be open. Avoid bias and assumptions about what you think you need and ask open questions that allow the candidate to talk about what they can do and manage.

3. Create a pleasant, safe atmosphere. Job interviews can be associated with nervousness and fear. Make the candidate relax, so both parties will have a good experience.

4. Be honest about the company's culture, values, and working methods, so the candidate is not surprised if they take the job. The candidate must be able to recognize the workplace when they enter.

The full employee journey

Phase one: Recruitment in the employee journey

Phase two: Pre- & onboarding in the employee journey

Phase three: Employee administration in the employee journey

Phase four: Employee development in the employee journey

Phase five: Offboarding in the employee journey