What successful employers have in common with The Spice Girls: They know what they want, what they really really want…

Recruiting employees in some ways is a bit like match-making – trying to find the right person. And, just like the game of love, in the heat of the moment it can be very hard to see past the one who looks just right on the surface. But perhaps in the cold light of day, they don’t actually have all the abilities skills and knowledge that your business really needs. Like The Spice Girls, get clear about what you really want but that’s where the similarity ends: save your passion to drive your business and recruit with a clear head.

Being an effective employer and a successful business person requires good judgment, and judgment can be improved with thinking, planning and a good dose of objectivity.

Some suggestions for planning your next recruitment:

• Consider the job first and the person second, not the other way around. Don’t have the tail wagging the dog.
• Look at the reality of your business, acknowledge what the business really needs, and not a fictional idea you may have of the job. If your business requires a wide range of very different tasks, that’s what you need to focus on getting, and not someone with specialist skills.
• Learn to articulate what you want and to know it when you see it – IT being the specific behaviours, skills and knowledge you are seeking, not just how you respond to the person. One of my clients in the hospitality industry said, when I asked them how they determined whether a candidate had good commonsense, was judged partly by what kind of body tattoos they had and where they had placed them. “Well, you know if they have them on their face or hands, that they haven’t really thought it through. Others may have them discreetly covered and in our workplace, that’s fine”.
• Prioritise, prioritise, prioritise. Work out what is essential to doing the job and don’t settle for less. Only consider those who have the essentials.
• Put yourself in their shoes – what job features might be attractive to the kind of person I am looking for? What can my business offer that the person I am seeking would want? People are motivated differently and at different times in their life, and you may find that you are able to offer something that costs nothing but worth a lot to the right person.
• It’s all about the evidence – how will I know that the person applying for the job can do the job?  You need evidence that the person can either do the job or has the potential (depending on what you want).  You need to devise a selection process that gives you the evidence you need, not a whole lot of information that doesn’t relate to the job.  And remember, the way you get that information can be extremely informative – how well they write, how well they talk, how well they think and how they react and respond.

My next post will be all about how to recruit once you know what you want.

Want to know more about recruitment planning?

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