In these 5 popular posts from 2014, IQ PARTNERS headhunters touch on hot industry topics from 2014 with tips and information for job seekers and talent seekers alike.
The first day on a new job can be tough for new employees, but it doesn’t have to be. Onboarding is the process of integrating a new hire into the company and helping them acquire the necessary knowledge, skills, and behaviors to become effective organizational members and insiders. There is certainly a range in terms of how and how well companies onboard. Most of us have had experiences on both ends of the spectrum at some point in our careers… so we know that effective onboarding makes a world of difference, both in productivity and feeling “at home”, engaged, competent, and committed.
Preparation breeds success which is why finding employees who fit perfectly with a company’s goals and culture is the largest contributor to a company’s long term success. In this blog I will outline the top questions headhunters should be asking to find the best fit candidate for the job.
Key 10 in my blog series, Hire Wisdom: The 12 Keys to Successful Hiring, is Perform Reference Checks. When I started writing this blog post, all I kept thinking was…“How can I get people to care about reference checks?” That’s because conducting reference checks have become one of the least meaningful parts of the hiring process. People have started to think of them as a final box to check, a task to “get out of the way” when the candidate has all but signed on the dotted line… but they’re wrong! Thinking of reference checks this way is a missed opportunity. Remember, a bad hire is costly, both in time and money – the cost of attrition is one to three times an employee’s salary!
It just makes sense that the best talent in the marketplace want to work with the best companies… and they are never short on offers. This is, of course, because top performing groups of talent are really what drive positive business growth, and continue the cycle of attracting the best people, which leads to ongoing success in business.
As a company in a competitive market you want to make sure top candidates are drawn to you as a destination employer. How?
Presenting a low ball offer to a candidate to save a few dollars on their salary is just bad business.
If you want a good employee who will spring out of bed in the morning to come and work for you, and stay for the long run, then pay them what they’re worth. A rookie mistake is to assume the salary you gave the last person in the role is good enough for a future employee. Salaries are dependent on the candidate and the market; how much could they get elsewhere? Remember that last year’s market prices or what you feel the market prices should be are irrelevant. Do some research to ensure the salary you offer is competitive.
Most often a meaningful job with a lower salary will be chosen over a less meaningful job with a higher salary.
But what makes a job meaningful? Opportunities for advancement, feeling challenged, and making a real impact are some of the common factors. Outline how the candidate can progress through the company and how they will be challenged. How does the company as a whole, and that role in particular, make a difference in the world?
As a headhunter, I often have A+ candidates who have gone all the way through the interview process with a client, only to have to turn them down toward the final stages – an often heartbreaking but necessary evil in the hiring process. My message to hiring managers and HR professionals is this: the way you go about letting someone down matters!
For anyone who has ever been turned down for an opportunity with a vague explanation like, “we’re going in another direction”, it can absolutely leave a sour taste in a candidate’s mouth, and jeopardize the opportunity to build a strong, ongoing relationship…
As executive headhunters, we know that hiring better is the key to rapid growth in any company. Your people are your greatest asset. PROFITguide.com writes, “The leaders of the PROFIT 500 have hired a lot of people in the past few years; they created more than 34,000 net full-time equivalent positions between 2008 and 2013, so they’ve mastered the art of screening and bringing in candidates”. Here are our top 5 favourites. We use these tactics every day here at IQ PARTNERS to hire internally, and advise our clients to do the same:
