Making hiring easier for everyone involved
We’re excited to share that our Talent team has grown to four Talent Specialists in the last five months, working alongside growing organisations to help them find the right people. Because we work as part of our clients’ teams, we partner with them across the whole process, from the first conversation about a role through to the offer, and everything that can make hiring easier or harder along the way.
We care a lot about candidate experience, but good recruitment should work well for the hiring manager too. You want to make a great decision without hiring taking over your diary for the next six weeks.
So we sat down with Jo and Avril and asked what they wish more hiring managers knew before a role goes live.
Put the time aside before you need it
One of the biggest surprises is how much time hiring actually takes.
A one-hour interview is rarely just an hour. Once you allow for preparation and a proper debrief, Avril recommends setting aside around two hours per interview. Across a few candidates, even a straightforward hire can quickly mean six or seven hours of a manager’s time.
The easiest thing you can do is get that time into the diary early. Decide who needs to be involved, who makes the final call and hold the interview time before great candidates become engaged and invested in your brand.
Keep the process simple and useful
More interviews do not necessarily give you a better outcome. For a straightforward role, Jo says they generally work to around three interviews to find a new team member. The important thing is knowing what you need to learn at each stage, rather than adding another conversation that repeats the same questions because everyone wants to meet the person.
Get clear on what matters most in the role, ask questions that give you real examples to work with, and use references to understand the patterns behind someone’s experience and how you can best support them.
You want to finish the process knowing why this is the right person for the role, rather than simply feeling like you had a good chat.
Remember what it feels like to be the candidate
This is the part our talent team see that hiring managers often cannot.
Great candidates put a lot into a process. Jo regularly sees people spend two or three hours preparing for a one-hour interview, as well as the mental energy expenditure all while rearranging their existing work to make it happen.
That is why candidate care sits at the heart of how we recruit. We keep people informed, help them prepare for interviews, explain delays, give robust feedback and help them understand what working in the organisation will actually feel like.
It helps candidates make a more informed decision about you, and it helps you keep great people engaged while you make yours.
Hiring a few people at once? Plan it that way
Once you have several roles open, hiring becomes a job in itself.
Sometimes it makes sense to hire the manager first. Sometimes related searches can run together. What matters is looking at the whole hiring plan rather than opening every role separately and hoping the pieces come together.
A well thought through recruitment plan upfront can save a lot of diary wrangling, duplicated effort and candidate frustration later.
At Humankind, our job is to help our clients find the best person for the role, with a clearer brief, more confident hiring managers and a better experience for the people considering joining your organisation.
Hiring still takes time. It just works a lot better when the right expectations are set upfront. Then you can relax and really enjoy meeting your potential new team members.
