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If you’ve been hiring over the last 3 years, you’re probably thinking, recruiting is never easy. You’re either waiting for applications to trickle in (as you were in 2021 and 2022) or you’re drowning in a deluge of CVs from a range of candidates with wildly different backgrounds in late 2023/2024.
While it might be tempting to wait for the job market to be just right (like Goldilocks), sometimes your business needs new staff, so you’re just going to have to learn to adjust to the current candidate-rich environment.
We’ve gone to experts in recruitment and small business to guide you on how to handle those sack loads of applications, avoid common mistakes in the hiring process, and find the best match for your organisation.
Hiring your next employee is the most important thing you’ll do this year
The first thing to say is, congratulations, you’re growing your business with a newly created role, or you’re confident enough about your business to be replacing a member of staff as they move on. Not everyone is in this fortunate position, so feel good about it.
The next thing to stress is that hiring a new member of your team is not something to be taken lightly. Be prepared to invest a lot of time and mental energy into it and to give it priority.
“This is an investment of time, it’s a curve that spikes up in the beginning to give you freedom down the road,” says Josie Adlam, business coach and mentor for business owners with The Icehouse.
Her message is don’t begrudge the time you spend on your next hire. “The most important investment is your people; you’re adding value to the business,” she argues.
One of the first things you’ll have to decide is whether you'll use a recruitment company to help you with the process or do it yourself. Using a traditional recruitment company, you’ll typically be charged a referral fee of 12-18% of the placed candidate’s base salary, says Jonathan Rice, co-founder of pay-as-you-go recruitment experts, JOYN.
Recruiters will often include a 3-6-month free replacement guarantee to re-recruit the role if the person doesn’t work out.
JOYN is part of an emerging recruiter agency model that’s better suited to smaller businesses that don’t hire in big numbers and adapts to a job market where people don’t stay in the same job for multiple years. JOYN charges for the recruiters’ time and expenses and there’s no placement fee at the end.
If you use a recruiter, make sure they know your industry
If you outsource the recruitment process, make sure it’s with a specialist not a generalist, says Jonathan.
Using a specialist recruiter who knows your industry sector well, and has current networks and knowledge, can provide you confidence that they know what and what not to look out for in applicants, he says.
And you can still be quite involved with the hiring process and make sure good applicants aren’t being dismissed by the recruiter.
“With JOYN, the SME has their own log-in to the recruitment platform that our specialist recruiters use, and they can collaborate closely with the recruiter throughout the process, including seeing every candidate in the funnel should they wish to highlight their own picks and add notes for the recruiter to see,” Jonathan says.
Mistakes employers make with their job ads
If you’ve decided a recruitment company isn’t the way you want to go, then you’ve got to write a really excellent job ad.
Talent Seed director, Tania Howard, often writes job ads for clients as it's not always something employers are good at. She's seen a lot of bad hires in the last few years due to getting the job ad wrong.
“Often the job ad doesn’t sell the role. It’s all about what 'we' - the employer - wants of the employee they’d like to hire."
Her advice is to describe the role so that people can visualise themselves in it, and to mention the benefits early on. She recommends including a short questionnaire within the job ad, tailored to the job’s needs.
For a recent Pick and Pack job ad which attracted over 600 applicants, one of the questions was: ‘Are you physically fit, and able to spend an 8-hour shift on your feet and carrying boxes up to 20kg in weight?’
The well-targeted questionnaire meant she only had to look at 20% of the applicants who got 100%.
Another mistake employers make with their job ads, is they make them vague or general, which they believe will cast the net wide and lead to a lot of people applying.
But less is more when it comes to applicants, says Jessica Cree, senior recruitment consultant with Source + Select Recruitment.
“If you get a lot of applicants, that’s telling you your ads are wrong. You only need one person.”
Josie Adlam says you need to make sure the ad really matches the type of job and work environment.
Describe who would suit the job, but also make it clear who wouldn’t. Talk about your industry, the challenges within it, the role's day-to-day tasks, and some of the worst things about it, says Josie.
“You don’t want someone starting the job and saying: ‘This wasn’t what I expected',” she adds.
Using Automated Tracking Systems
If your job ad attracts a lot of applicants, Applicant Tracking Systems (ATSs) can help manage and automate candidate communications, explains Jonathan Rice.
But if you don’t recruit enough to justify a subscription to one of these systems, most of the main job boards contain candidate management tools such as bulk email actions.
If you’re working with a recruiter, they will have an ATS and if you’re hiring more than 6 times a year, it may be worth having a standalone ATS, advises Tania Howard.
The main benefit of a standalone ATS is that a business can receive applications from multiple job boards (like Seek and Trade Me Jobs) have them collated in one place, and provide easy responses, Tania says.
Whatever you do, respond to each application
One mistake you want to avoid is failing to respond to applicants, no matter how many applications your job listing attracts.
Remember that job applicants could also be your current or future customers, and these days companies' consumer brands and employment brands are inextricably tied, Jonathan Rice warns.
Rather than causing resentment from applicants and harming the company brand if you don’t respond, Josie Adlam suggests bringing in a temp to answer the unsuccessful applications.
“It’s a small country - you have to respond,” she says. Have the temp craft an email to each applicant, make it personalised, and show care and gratitude that they took time to apply.
“This is all part of what builds your brand,” she says.
And if you’ve interviewed a candidate don’t decline them by email, adds Tania.
Phone-screening will help cull candidate numbers
Another leaf you can take out of an experienced recruiter’s book is to review each CV as it comes in and move immediately to call up candidates who seem most suitable.
“Phone-screening can take just a couple of minutes," says Jess Cree. "I can clarify in one minute if this person is right in terms of skills and level.”
There’s a misalignment of expectations among employers at the moment, the recruiter believes.
“They think they’re going to get hundreds of amazing, absolutely suitable candidates but it’s not true."
This is why phone-screening is so important, she says. And don’t wait for the ad deadline, she warns.
“Candidates aren’t just applying for your job, they’ll be sending their CVs to recruiters and a good recruiter will call them immediately.”
Consider some outlier and over-qualified applicants
When a relatively senior person applies for a mid-level or even junior job, it’s worth making a quick call to them to see what their motivation is. You’ll be able to explain the level of the position, the money and benefits, and see if they’re still interested, Jess says.
It can be intimidating having a senior candidate apply for a mid-level job but don’t judge a book by its cover, comments Jonathan.
“People’s lives change and they might want to go on a different journey or change pace or focus for a while.”
Now’s a great time to access higher levels of experience and talent while it’s available on the job-seeker market, and at a more affordable salary range too, he says.
Think about considering some outliers among the applications you see, advises Josie.
“Some of my best hires have been people who I’ve thought: ‘They don’t seem typical, I wonder why they’re applying for this role?’”
Employers hire for aptitude and attitude, says Josie. “These applicants might have talents but not all the experience required. If they have the right attitude and match the cultural fit, they might still work out well.”
Don’t fudge the interview process
After having gone through all the hard work of drawing up a shortlist of candidates you’d like to interview, make sure you approach the interview process with care and thoroughness.
“A casual chat is not appropriate and there’s so much evidence it isn’t an indicator of performance,” says Tania Howard.
Adhere to a good interview guide, which will help you gain proof of why this person might be a good match to the role based on what they’ve done.
With SMEs, it’s all about skills and culture fit. Hiring a new person is such a huge commitment, you can’t afford to get the wrong fit, says Josie Adlam.
She suggests asking a question like: "Our culture is really important to us and our values are critical to our culture. One of our values is transparency. What does that mean to you and how have you demonstrated this in the past?"
You’ll have a number of interactions with the candidate to make sure they’re a good cultural fit. So, on another occasion have them meet their peers at the business, too, and then if it’s a technical role, test them on their skills, or give them an assignment.
Finally, reference checks are very important, says Josie. These are often so cookie-cutter, the referee will only say positive things.
Be smart with your questions, she says. If you confront a referee about a candidate, people can’t flub. Are they giving a politician’s response or are they being genuine?
“Make your questions as open-ended as possible."
