How to make your recruitment process stand out from the crowd

Technical engineering recruitment experts NRL has been supporting clients to find the right candidates in Cumbria, across the UK and globally for over 40 years. So, it’s fair to say they know a lot about talent attraction, which Egremont-based Director Rebecca Graves was happy to share with in-Cumbria readers.

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Cut out the noise on adverts

A quick search online and you’ll find hundreds of open job vacancies, so it’s important that your job advert is concise and gets to the point straight away. Avoid overuse of jargon or internal language, and only include the absolute essentials for the role, such as the key skills candidates will need to possess. Avoid lengthy bullet point lists with generic information or basic skills, that someone applying for a role at that level should hold as standard.

Include the key elements of the role at the start of the advert, remembering that candidates will be viewing multiple jobs at the same time, so may only skim them initially to gauge whether to progress them further.

Don’t include desirable skills, keep these to the interview stage to avoid alienating candidates who may be put off applying where they do not have all the skills listed on the advert.

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Shorten the recruitment process

Think about how many steps are genuinely needed to recruit the right person. Do you need multiple interviews with long gaps whilst you compile an interview panel or can this be shortened so you’re significantly reducing the time to hire? If good candidates are looking for work it won’t take them long to find it, so lengthy recruitment processes will likely see candidates withdrawing.

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Sell your company as well as the job

Tell people about your culture, what makes your business unique and why you’re proud of the career development opportunities you can provide people joining your organisation. Before applying candidates will often visit the careers pages on your website, so use real examples of your team and their personal experiences and career progression stories.

Key takeaways

• Make the job description succinct and take off the definite list of skills

• Leave off the desirable skills, if it’s not essential it shouldn’t be on the advert

• Keep the recruitment process short, don’t over engineer it

• Shout about your company culture, candidates won't know if you don’t tell them

If you’re looking for support to streamline your recruitment process, get in touch with Rebecca on rgraves@nrl.co.uk

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