Finding the Right Candidate For Your Firm Has Never Been Simpler

05/06/18

The strength of any company – no matter what sector they operate in – is to be found in the quality of its personnel. Consequently, recruiting quality candidates should be at the forefront of every business owner’s mind.

There are any number of pressures upon companies looking for the right candidate – not simply do they have the right qualifications, will they fit in with the team, will they stay with the firm once they have been trained, and what will the cost – both in monetary and time terms –  of the recruitment drive be? Fortunately, there are also a growing number of tools and systems available to recruiters to help them find potential candidates and to select the right ones for the role.

Current employers and their Human Resource departments are using a full toolbox of methods to cast their recruitment net, with a general trend away from engaging traditional recruitment agencies to field, screen and process applications and CVs.

Business in Focus’ HR Manager Andrea Wallbank says: “There are tried and tested digital methods and tools many companies use to simply get the message out there that they are hiring, and they consistently pay dividends. Clearly, using LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter, is a great way of speaking to a large demographic. They are also helpful as a way of getting more subtle messages across about what the business ethos is, who you are as a team, what the experience of working for you would be like. Social media is way of showing the personality of a company and its brand which is more likely to attract people whose values, interests and ambitions chime with yours.

“Over the last 12 months, Business in Focus has appointed more than 30 new positions and many of our new team members found their way to us via social media, using a simple search. They were then able to delve into the character of the company by investigating the content on its social media platforms as well as our website.”

According to recent statistics  40 percent of LinkedIn members use the mobile app to find job vacancies, and in 2017, it was reported that there were around three million active job listings on the platform.

Facebook, meanwhile, introduced its own jobs section recently, acknowledging the fact that the platform is well used for these purposes. And, of course, many recruiters will use a platform like LinkedIn to help target particular required characteristics and to vet potential candidates once their application hits their desk.

Andrea adds: “Using methods like a Boolean search, which we have introduced here at Business in Focus, can help employers use large databases to find that valuable needle in a large haystack.”

Boolean searches can help you leverage large databases, such as a recruitment CRM or LinkedIn to find relevant candidates fast, by typing in detailed string searches to unearth quality candidates. Similarly, we have explored other avenues such as virtual job fairs that offer an interactive digital forum, allowing employers to interact with job seekers efficiently, saving time and costs for both parties.

Andrea concludes “A year or so ago, faced with a significant recruitment task in a labour market where fewer people are seeking work, we set out to radically modernise our approach. The quality of the team we now have and how swiftly they felt at home in the Business in Focus family are a testament to the improvements that digital solutions have made to the recruitment process – not to mention the impact on workload for the HR team!”

As a growing social enterprise we are always looking for new talent to join the team. To view the list of job vacancies visit www.businessinfocus.co.uk/about-business-in-focus/join-the-team

Business in Focus is a Wales-based business support specialist offering a broad range of vital support services, with offices throughout South Wales and the Valleys.