Understanding how to recruit employees who will succeed at your company is a necessary skill for any successful manager. After all, the cost of a bad hire  can be significant, not only in terms of time and money spent searching for a suitable candidate, but also by negatively affecting team morale. 

Robert Half is an expert at finding top talent, and we’re sharing some of our top tips on how to recruit employees to help your company thrive. From knowing what you’re looking for in your next hire to recognizing those qualities when you see them in the candidates you interview during the recruitment process, our resources can help you feel capable and confident throughout the employee recruitment process.

Where are all the good people?

Even in a tight labor market where employers are struggling to find and keep workers, there are tried-and-true methods for finding job candidates. They generally fall into these categories: 

• General job boards — There are hundreds of online job boards out there, but many of them generate a lot of unqualified applicants. A good place to start is by reading 25 Job Search Sites, Starting With Ours.
• Specific job boards — Companies that need specialists would be smart to post their job ads on websites particular to their industry.
• Current employee referrals — Soliciting recommendations from your own team members is a great way to find new applicants. 
• Your own networks — Reaching out to the contacts you’ve developed over the course of your career could generate good leads, especially when you’re hiring for management positions.
• Talent solutions firms — An employment agency specializing in recruitment can take a lot of the pressure off you and your team to find the right people.

Robert Half matches companies with skilled contract and full-time talent in  finance and accounting, administrative and customer support, legal, technology, and marketing and creative fields. Let us help you.

The lowdown on how to recruit

Recruiting might seem straightforward, but it can quickly become complicated — especially when you consider the variables unique to each hiring situation. Highly skilled candidates with lots of experience, for example, are often in demand regardless of the economic climate. Today’s low unemployment rate means top candidates are hard to find, and those who are looking for work may find themselves with  multiple job offers.

Successful employee recruitment requires more than just placing a job posting on LinkedIn. Finding and hiring the right people for your company requires diligent preparation, thorough execution and a clear understanding of your hiring objectives.

If your company doesn’t have a dedicated recruiter or HR department, recruitment can be especially tricky. Plus, the recruitment process has changed a lot in recent years, and your old hiring methods may no longer be as effective as they once were.

Six steps to recruiting employees

Follow these steps to help make the right additions to your team:

1. Consider your actual needs. Think about the big picture of your business needs when creating a hiring strategy. What proportions of your team should be permanent or contract positions?  Robert Half’s career professionals can explain the benefits of addressing your hiring needs with a flexible staffing strategy.
2. Promote your opening. Posting the job on employment websites, your company’s own career page and all the outlets listed in the section above is essential. And don’t forget to advertise the position internally — creating opportunities for advancement helps create a culture of loyalty, which leads to stronger employee retention.
3. Judge candidates by the same standard. Determining which people to interview is a different game than selecting which of the candidates is best for the position, but devising a strategy to fairly evaluate all applicants is essential. Eliminate bias from your recruiting by holding all candidates to the same set of standards as you develop best practices for recruiting employees.
4. Conduct interviews with top applicants. The job interview is the most revealing part of the hiring process, and also the trickiest. You have to make every person’s interview count, with a set list of thoughtful, standardized questions if you want to compare job candidates properly. 
5. Don’t take too long to hire. Job seekers, especially top talent, are likely to get frustrated and lose interest in the job — or accept another offer — if the hiring process takes too long. It's a tough balance to strike: Move too fast and you could make a bad hire, but move too slow and you could miss out on a good employee. 
6. Making the offer. After the interviews, be sure to check job references for your top candidates. Before you make an offer, set a salary range you’re willing to work with so you’re prepared for any salary negotiation.

Put a talent solutions firm on the case

Finding a good employee can be a difficult process. Employers  often find that an employment agency makes the recruitment process easier, less stressful and more effective for their companies by providing the following benefits. 

• Tighten up your hire time. Robert Half research shows most managers take longer to hire now than they did a year ago, leading to candidates accepting other offers.
• Spearhead your recruitment strategy. A recruiter can help you craft a job post that’s more likely to draw the attention of the best applicants. 
• Scout the talent. The best talent managers have access to a large pool of skilled professionals,  including passive job seekers — professionals who are not actively searching for a new position but would be open to changing roles for the right opportunity.
• Make your workforce agile. An employment agency can help your business recruit contract, seasonal, permanent, contract-to-permanent, project-based, remote, on-site, one employee, an entire team — and advise on the best mix for your company’s specific  needs and business cycles. 
• Decrease turnover costs. Dealing with a bad hire takes up too much of management’s time, especially in a small business. When you engage a talent solutions firm, you know the talented professionals we connect you with have been evaluated.  
• Try out a new person for your team. A contract assignment with the option to go contract-to-permanent after a certain period is a good method for evaluating  a candidate’s skills and work ethic before committing to a permanent arrangement.  

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