Want the best people? Then don’t keep them waiting
Every company wants to recruit the best people. We hear it all the time, businesses want talented, motivated people who are the right fit for their team and can make a real difference. However there’s another side to recruiting the best talent, especially locally that sometimes gets overlooked, let’s not forget the best candidates also have a choice.
The recruitment process you use says a lot about your business, for a candidate, their experience of your company starts long before their first day, it starts when they apply.
How quickly is their application acknowledged?
How long does it take to decide whether you would like to meet them?
What happens after the interview? Are they kept informed, or are they left waiting for days or sometimes weeks wondering what is happening?
We see this more often than we would like, a strong candidate applies for a role but diaries are busy and arranging an interview takes longer than expected. The interview eventually happens and goes well, but feedback takes another week. Then there are internal discussions, approvals and paperwork before an offer can be made. None of those delays necessarily seem unreasonable when viewed individually, but add them together and sometimes several weeks have passed, meanwhile, the candidate hasn't stopped looking.
This is particularly important in a market like Guernsey, we are a small island with a relatively small talent pool. Good candidates can be considering several opportunities and, when they decide the time is right to move, things can happen quickly. That doesn't mean businesses should rush recruitment decisions, employing someone is an important decision after all and getting it wrong can be costly for everyone involved. But there is a big difference between taking care over a decision and allowing a recruitment process to drift for too long.
Some of the businesses we see having the greatest success recruiting in Guernsey are those that understand that difference. They move quickly when they meet someone they like, they provide feedback promptly, they keep candidates/agency informed and most importantly, they recognise that recruitment is a two way process.
If you want the best talent, show them!
It's easy to say that people are your greatest asset, the recruitment process is one of the first opportunities you have to demonstrate it. Respond quickly, keep people informed, give feedback and make decisions. If you meet somebody you genuinely want in your business, don't assume they'll still be available in three weeks' time, because while you're deciding whether they're the right candidate for you, they are also deciding whether you're the right company for them, and in the Guernsey recruitment market, the businesses that understand that are often the ones getting the people they want.