Candidate Preparation

Don’t Stop Short, Go All the Way!

With the labour market heating-up, staffing companies are faced with trying to find highly qualified individuals in a difficult market. Staffing companies around the globe seem to be facing the same challenge; lots of demand from clients, but not enough supply. So what are staffing companies doing differently to find qualified resources in this tough market? After speaking with various companies within Canada and USA, the answer is not too much. Staffing companies continue to sift through databases, look for splits, advertise on their websites, job boards, newsprint etc. Regardless of the market, the process of finding qualified candidates remains status quo. But why change if the profits are still coming in?  One reason for change is that continuing with the same assembly line recruiting results in a commoditization of your product. The result of the commoditizing of your service is a downward pressure on prices. Off the rack recruitment leads to a perception from employers that you are simply a “body shop”.

How can staffing companies improve their process? From our human resources experience interviewing candidates on the other side of the table, the answer is simple; better screening when interviewing potential candidates and more thought before sending them out to employers. While there are many things you can do to ensure better screening like skills and aptitude testing, biometrics and psychometrics but we will focus on interviewing since this is a simple, low cost method that can give you the most return.

When it comes to interviewing, make sure you and your staff follow a standardized interview process, asking the vital questions. Make sure all your staff get comprehensive training on interviewing techniques and how to interpret responses in a consistent way. They should be well-versed in the various interview techniques, methods of inquiry, and so forth. They should know how to use basic techniques like behavioural interviewing and understand how to interpret answers. Believe it or not we have met professional recruiters who do not know how to use this technique effectively.

Let’s face it you see a lot of poorly written resumes. The other thing is to prepare your candidates on paper and in-person before submitting them to clients. Remember that the resumes you submit to your client reflect on you. Sending weak resumes communicates a bad message to your client. Often recruiters spend more effort trying to pump out more resumes to employers than sending one good one. If your candidate does not have a well-written resume that stands out from the stack, then invest the time to address this. This may entail providing feedback for the candidate on how they can improve their resume or it may require you to do a little editing. Of course too busy and focus on selling so another option to refer them to a professional resume writer. By presenting a well-written resume your candidate have better chance to get interview.

Sending candidates with sharp interview skills is vital. Staffing companies must take the next step and spend time coaching their candidates on interview skills. Knowing the hiring manager, company, culture, interview style and format all helps to prep your candidate . Also cover the basics since many candidates don’t have the basic interview skills.  Often your candidate does not have much time before your client forms an impression and makes a decision.  In our observation many candidates fail due to the soft skills questions. Again your candidates represent you to your client. Your candidates want to impress hiring managers and you want to preserve good relationships with client.

In summary, by spending more time and effort to screen, prepare your candidates on paper and in-person before submitting them to clients you will increase your chances at making a placement and maintain a positive relationship with both your candidates and clients. In doing so, you will elevate your business from a “body shop” to “boutique”.

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Help prepare your candidates before sending them for the job interview. Click on continue in demo below to find out how EmployPrep software can help you increase your company brand and provide your candidates with online job preparation tools.

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