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How To Deal With More Than One Great Candidate

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Recruitment is all about finding that perfect candidate, but what happens when we end up with more than one? Every now and then, an effective recruitment process gathers multiple suitable applicants, any of which you would love to hire, but unfortunately only have one position.

While this is a good problem to have, it can be a situation where we miss out on strong talent that could be valuable down the line or even currently in a different section of the business. So how do we address it?

 

How to Handle Several Excellent Applicants

 

  • Find a Lateral Position – Often we find applicants who seem like excellent organisational fits but due to a slightly better applicant, they miss out on the position and you miss out on a potentially valuable employee. When you have situations like these make sure to keep in mind any upcoming or other current  positions you will be hiring for that may match the candidate’s skill-set. Furthermore, communicate this consideration to the candidate. This will keep their job seeking mentality engaged with your organisation and potentially line up a strong hire down the line.
  • Talent Pooling – Building off the last point, even if you have no other positions available, communicate your own positive feedback to the candidate in terms of their application performance and their strong fit and ask to keep their details on file in a talent pool. While this is not revolutionary, this is often just used as a way to mollify disappointed candidates, but if managed correctly can over the long-term, build a database of already positively-screened candidates as your first port of call for future roles. Additionally, a strong Candidate Management System, such as Scout, is invaluable in the process of building these kind of pools.
  • Keep them on in a Project or Contract Basis  – An additional approach you can take is to consider outsourcing work to the promising individual on specific projects or for a particularly busy period. This has the double effect of keeping them engaged with a presence in the organisation for when a role becomes available, while allowing you to examine their on-the-job performance. While many candidates may not engage such a proposal, the individuals who are exceptionally motivated to join your organisation will often seriously consider such an offer, and relish the opportunity to get their foot in the door.

 

Now while this may seem a best-case kind of problem, it still is a problem. Recruiters need to be ready and possess the tools to track and manage human talent as it moves around their organisation. By building a positive connection with all candidates through strong candidate care and considerations like the above, you can streamline your recruitment to not only make current applicants more valuable, but build your employer brand positively within the market.

 

How to Get an Applicant Excited About the Workplace

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One of the biggest mistakes companies make is assuming that an employee should want to work for them. Far too many organisations seem to feel that the employee is lucky to be employed. But every applicant, no matter how talented or the position that they are taking over, needs to be excited about working for you.

Why This Excitement is Important

From the interview to the time they start work, you need your applicants to want to work for you more than anyone else. This is because:

  • Some Are Deciding – Top talents usually have more than one offer. You need to be their top choice.
  • Some Are Motivated – Even those that have no other offers are more motivated to work for employers that impress them.
  • Some Have Friends – If an applicant is excited about the position, they’ll likely recommend employment at your company to their friends in the future.

Every single employee from the mail room to the CEO should be excited to work for your organisation, even if they are grateful for employment. It is up to your company to figure out how to create that excitement.

Ways to Create Excitement

Luckily, creating excitement for the workplace is easy. There are ample ways to make sure that applicants and employees know that their employer is a great place to work.

  • Emphasise Your Benefits and Programs – What do you do to make sure your employees are satisfied? Emphasise these perks. If you don’t have many perks, try to come up with new programs that will benefit employees and increase their happiness, then promote them.
  • Market Yourself Online – Make sure that your job descriptions and the information about you online is exciting and promotional. Many applicants will be researching you before and after they are employed to learn more about how you treat those that work for you.
  • Show Clear Growth – Not every employee is going to like where they are now. But every employee is going to like where they can be. An organisational structure that shows the applicant what they can achieve if they work hard and what’s available to them will get them excited.

These are only a few examples of ways you can get employees excited about your workplace. The potential is nearly endless. But the most important thing to do is make sure that you have an answer to the question: “why should you want to work here instead of somewhere else?” If the answer isn’t exciting, then the applicant will not be excited. Give them reasons to find your workplace more exciting than other employers and you’ll see a significant difference in your ability to get production and attract talent.

What To Do When You Have More Than One Great Applicant

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By the time you’re interviewing applicants, you have shortlisted your applicant pool down to the people that look the most qualified. That means that you have created a smaller pool of very talented individuals, and are simply looking for the one that is the best fit.

The idea that only one applicant can fit inside your organization, however, is a myth. It’s quite possible that there are several great applicants, each of whom represents a phenomenal talent that your company may need. This represents a good, but by no means simple problem: What are you supposed to do when you have multiple qualified applicants?

How to Handle Several Excellent Applicants

  • Create a Position for Them – If an applicant is qualified for your business, they’re qualified for a competitor as well. Remember that there are no rules about how many people you can hire. You can create an identical position, or even create a new position just to keep them within the organization. Any solution that both keeps them in the company and not working for a competitor is a good solution, provided your company can use their services and afford it.
  • Put Them in An Applicant Tracking System – So you can’t hire them now. But you may be able to hire them later. Let them know that you someday want to add them to the company but you do not have the space, and you would like to put them in an applicant tracking system, like SCOUT, in order to hire them if/when a position opens. Then make sure they are first to be considered for nearly every role.
  • Outsource Work to Them – An intriguing way to keep them in the organization is to have them work as contractors or consultants. This will send them work, but you’ll be under no obligation to hire them, and then should the person you hire not work out or a position opens in the future, they’ll have a direct line into your organization. In this increasingly digital world, this idea can be very beneficial.

Having more than one great applicant is a problem every company wishes they had. But it’s still a problem, because if you hire only one you may be turning away someone that could have been a great contributor to your company. Make sure you explore ways to either bring them into your company or to keep them connected to your company in some way, and you’ll be able to keep your organization flush with talent for years to come.

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Webinar: How to Choose the Right Applicant

When: Thursday March 26th 2015 Time: 12:00 PM – 12:45 PM AEST (Brisbane)
Join Samantha Gellis, Recruitment and Shortlisting Specialist for this practical and insightful webinar in which our Recruitment expert will share her experiences in candidate assessment and give practical guidance and tips on the effective assessment of candidates.

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For more tips on recruitment marketing and employer branding, you can contact us at info@employmentoffice.com or visit out website at www.employmentoffice.com.au.

Common Mistakes Companies Make When They Choose Where to Advertise

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As soon as a position opens up in your company you need to try to fill it. Every day that job goes unfilled is a day that you’re not getting the production you need at your business.

Most companies rush to fill the position, advertising at some of the most popular locations in order to attract applicants the fastest. But this rush to advertise can also lead to many mistakes. The following are several mistakes that companies make about where they choose to advertise their job openings.

Mistakes About Job Posting Locations

  • Quantity-Only Locations – The most common mistake is posting to a location only because it gets a lot of candidates, not because it gets the best candidates. Recruitment is not a competition for who can receive the most applicants, but rather whether or not you can find the perfect one for your needs. Quantity locations are good, but focusing only on the places that get the most applicants will cause you to miss out on a lot of better locations.
  • Highly Competitive Ads – Similarly, when you post on these mass job boards, you have to make sure that your ad is even going to be seen. Often you’ll find that your own job ad is pushed to the bottom of the pile in a few hours, and the best applicants may not even see it. It may also be surrounded with similar job openings from companies that sounds like they pay more, which means that great applicants may choose not to apply to your job in favor of the better paying one right above you.
  • Limiting to One Job Board – You also have to make sure you’re not limiting yourself to a single job board, regardless of how much traffic it receives. Even if one job site helps you receive thousands of applicants, your perfect candidate may be browsing some other site and seeing one of your competitor’s placements instead.

What Should You Be Doing?

Ideally, you need to make sure you are advertising open positions in places where your best possible candidates will see them. Look for websites that speak directly to your ideal audience, like specialty job boards and job posting areas of industry relevant websites. Don’t be afraid to take the jobs to applicants on social media, and make sure that if you are posting on the mass job boards, you’re making sure that your posts are going to be seen as desirable by the candidates you want.

Where you advertise is almost as important as how you advertise, because you need to make sure that the right pair of eyes sees your ad and wants to become a part of your organization.

For more tips on recruitment and employer branding you can contact us at info@employmentoffice.com.au or visit our website at www.employmentoffice.com.au.