Recruitment is a matter of great significance for businesses. One of the central roles of the human resources department and the HR manager, recruitment involves acquiring new talents, resources and employees who serve as a company’s competitive edge in all its activities.
While traditional hiring methods such as posting job vacancies both online and offline, participating in job fairs and networking have been very effective in terms of reaching out to a critical mass of job candidates, their effectiveness in hiring for specialised job positions leaves much to be desired. After all, these methods are meant to maximise reach and not precision in seeking out the best fits for vacancies.
In recruiting specific people with distinct skill sets, human resources managers need to get their hands a little dirty. Perhaps consider offbeat, unconventional recruitment methods that have worked for other companies? Here’s a few to get your HR department started:
Go undercover during career fairs
While job and career fairs tend to attract a lot of aspiring job applicants, it can be difficult to evaluate people correctly when they’re putting their best foot forward. While previous experiences, educational backgrounds and other information can make for great hires, try to get a worm’s eye view by going incognito in your next job fair. Try to talk to a lot of people without actually interviewing them. Learn how genuinely eager or passionate they are about job vacancies.
Organise contests and competitions
Tech companies sometimes hold hackathons to get the best candidates who can handle pressure and competition. If your industry is suitable for similar contests, try to put potential hires on the spot and test their practical, real-world performance for tasks they’ll often do or encounter in your job post. Designed properly, contests and competitions can help your company get its hands on prime candidates you’d otherwise skip during a regular hiring process.
Post job openings in context-specific spaces
Knowing when and where potential candidates spend most of their time (both online and offline) is ideal for human resource managers to help them design more context-specific and precisely targeted recruitment initiatives.
Recruit the competition
Show your competition’s employees that you’re a better employer. After all, these potential candidates are fairly knowledgeable and experienced about your industry and business category. Barring non-compete clauses, there’s no stopping your competition’s employees from joining your company, especially if they feel that their careers are stagnating. Subtly let them know that you’re willing to hire them through creative means.
Baptism by fire
Sometimes, hiring internally is the best way to find the best talents and resources. While promotions are common, baptism by fire through accelerated promotion can bring the best out of your employees. “Hire for attitude, train for skill” is a common mantra for HR managers and letting employees rise to the challenge is one way to live up to it. Aside from having relevant experience and knowledge about your company and its vision, you already know your employees well enough to trust them with responsibilities. Who knows? Maybe the prodigy you’re looking for is just down the hall, waiting for the right opportunity to prove him/herself.
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