Finding and Hiring the Ideal Job Candidate

How to find and hire high-quality candidates?

With the emergence of technology in literally every industry in every part of the world, the industry of human resources has become unrecognizable compared to what it was a few years ago. As a result, finding high-quality candidates has become, and is continuing to be, the biggest challenge for many HR Professionals, CEOs and Business Owners. In order to overcome this challenge, they have to adjust to the emerging HR trends and follow the best practices for finding and hiring ideal job candidates.

Check out our Ultimate Guide for Finding Qualified Candidates in 2018!

If only the ideal job candidates were looking for us...

What about those candidates that aren't looking for us? They are satisfied with where they are, but they have the ideal characteristics for our business? In the recruiting cycles, they are known are known as passive candidates. A passive candidate is almost an ideal candidate for us. But, no. He doesn't want us. He/She is satisfied with where he/she is.

What can we do to make it be better for our company? What can we do to make him/her make a breakthrough, take a risk and deal with a new challenge?

Candidate engagement and experience

Having a clear and well-structured candidate engagement strategy is important for attracting the best talent. These can be email campaigns or, if you are a smaller company or have found a candidate you don't want to lose, you can engage with them personally. Here is how:

1. Firstly, building a strong company reputation is absolutely necessary. Best talent has many places to go to, so you need to show them your unique Employer Brand and your Employer Value Proposition. You have to be an employer that actively communicates through social networks, informs the general public about its and its' people successes. It has to present itself as a proactive ambiance for work, that brings the best out of people. In the end, but not less important, it has to be seen that your people are having a good time. This is why communicating Employer Value Proposition is important to attract your candidate personas. 
2. Secondly, to contact a candidate and create an opportunity to meet him/her in an informal environment. The passive candidate that doesn't look for a job and doesn't want to leave the current company, will not come to a strictly formal interview – he/she isn't interested in that. But, he/she will not refuse an informal socializing, constructive discussion or whatever he/she might be interested in (it has nothing to do with work). Building an exceptional candidate experience is imperative for building a high-quality talent pool. 
3. Thirdly, we are here and we hang out. We talk in a relaxed way, stimulate the candidate to open more, and, through the informal talking, we find out everything we need. While we talk about summer plans, we can discover a lot about our candidate. About its affinities, habits, social characteristics and its character. And, we are talking about the summer holidays. Very simple, isn't it? We end our socializing with an agreement to repeat it (not the interview, but socializing) because this one was very nice and comfortable.
4. Fourthly, we hang out again. Now, we have some connection with the candidate, communication is more relaxed and more open. We talk about our company and about options for his/her engagement in our company. Maybe, he/she is satisfied with the present situation, but still, he/she asks more and more questions about the company and the working place. You wake his/her curiosity up!

By now, you find out what moves and motivates him/her. Also, you know are you in a situation to offer it. Is that the money, additional benefits, stimulative atmosphere, support in education... millions of possibilities.

Through an informal talk, you can easily find out what is human's motivator. During interviews, candidates give you taught answers, especially the ones who actively look for a job. You don't need the taught answer, but the real situation. When you have the right information, then you can affect in a right way. Without a waste of time and missed opportunities.

A man who is satisfied in its company is there for a long time and doesn't think about leaving – that can be changed if you offer him/her something that he/she doesn't already have.

On the other hand, if you really want to have that man in your company, then you have to be willing to offer something like that and to be sure it is worth it.

The whole process mustn't last long. When you see the first resistance is gone, you react fast. There isn't time for an endlessly long, selective process, and for endless, formal meetings. That way, you will only lose attention, and the candidate will go back to its safe surroundings and give up on your company.

If we have done all the mentioned and succeeded – good for us!

If we have put all the effort, gave a phenomenal offer, but the candidate doesn't want it – once again, good for us!

Good for us how? Do we congratulate failure? No. That is a success, too. Still, we succeeded in something.

We realized that this wasn't the ideal candidate for this position. We don't need a man who is not willing to take a risk, to make an additional step, to look forward to new challenges. It's better to know it now, than later when the candidate is included in the team and represented as a star.

Also, the whole story about the ideal candidate who said no should be perceived as a valuable training, acquiring new knowledge and skills. Never enough knowledge.

Still, we stick to the fact that we succeeded, because, this has to be a story with a happy ending.