Going back to my airport reading, I read Managing Oneself by Peter Drucker (link here) as part of The Essentials book from the Harvard Business Review. Good article. One big take away was how this would relate to how we recruit. Specifically, how can you improve the hiring process?
Drucker says “The only way to discover your strengths is through feedback analysis” which if you think about it is dead on. Peer reviews, 360 reviews and manager feedback are all critical to self-improvement. But...how do you get this to relate to recruiting? Here are a few quick thoughts:
1) Track your metrics - Any data you can analyze about your process is sure to help you discover your strengths and improve the process. Find your time to fill is terrible but you have a 100% acceptance rate? Maybe your process does such a good job selling candidates that it takes a long time but as an org you’ve decided it’s a worthwhile trade-off. Whatever the data, taking a deeper look and analyzing the feedback will help you discover your strengths.
2) Survey your new hires - That’s right, 30 days after you have a new employee start you should sit down with them and do a post mortem of the process. What went well? What could be improved? Take this feedback to heart, discover the strengths and weaknesses of your process....adjust as necessary!
3) Ask people you don’t hire - File this under “take with a grain of salt” but I think there is value in talking to some of the people you don’t hire about your process. I’m not saying this is the end all be all of feedback but if you have a few selected candidates who maintain a good relationship with your organization you can get a ton of value from their thoughts. That said, I’d use this feedback as a way to verify feedback from the other sources as opposed to changing your entire strategy based on people outside the organization.
For now, happy recruiting and I hope to have another grunge post later in the week!
Drucker says “The only way to discover your strengths is through feedback analysis” which if you think about it is dead on. Peer reviews, 360 reviews and manager feedback are all critical to self-improvement. But...how do you get this to relate to recruiting? Here are a few quick thoughts:
1) Track your metrics - Any data you can analyze about your process is sure to help you discover your strengths and improve the process. Find your time to fill is terrible but you have a 100% acceptance rate? Maybe your process does such a good job selling candidates that it takes a long time but as an org you’ve decided it’s a worthwhile trade-off. Whatever the data, taking a deeper look and analyzing the feedback will help you discover your strengths.
2) Survey your new hires - That’s right, 30 days after you have a new employee start you should sit down with them and do a post mortem of the process. What went well? What could be improved? Take this feedback to heart, discover the strengths and weaknesses of your process....adjust as necessary!
3) Ask people you don’t hire - File this under “take with a grain of salt” but I think there is value in talking to some of the people you don’t hire about your process. I’m not saying this is the end all be all of feedback but if you have a few selected candidates who maintain a good relationship with your organization you can get a ton of value from their thoughts. That said, I’d use this feedback as a way to verify feedback from the other sources as opposed to changing your entire strategy based on people outside the organization.
For now, happy recruiting and I hope to have another grunge post later in the week!
I'd like to add a little something to that. You spoke about interviewing the hired and the 'un-hired'. One other thing I'd suggest is tracking the keywords applicants used when looking for you on the internet.
ReplyDeleteAfter you do that, is there a correlation you can make between your process and what the applicant was looking for/expecting in the first place?
Perhaps your process is fantastic for some people but not others. Because in the end, it's your reputation, your marketing and your ads that bring applicants in. If you can match what works with the right search terms - you can increase the number of quality candidates.