Most hiring decisions are made using remarkably little information. A candidate sends a CV and cover letter, documents carefully written to present the best possible version of themselves, and shortly afterwards, they are invited to an interview. At that point, the panel is essentially interviewing a stranger and relying heavily on intuition and first impressions. Here are 5 ideas to modernise your hiring process.
CVs are Risky
Apart from the candidate controlling the narrative and only telling you what they think you want to hear, a CV tells you where someone has been, not what they can do. They obscure high potential candidates without traditional experience, and it introduces bias through the use of names, schools, addresses, credentials etc, all of which send a social signal that many people unconsciously respond to. On top of that, now AI can generate "perfect" resumes and auto-apply en masse.
Put Your Recruitment Process in the Job Advertisement
It’s a simple step, but let the candidates know early on what your recruitment process involves. The more information you can get to candidates early in the process, the better. For example, our clients recruit by doing a telephone screen, psychometric testing, and then an interview; thus, in their job advertisements, they mention this so the candidates can be aware of the process and decide to continue or withdraw.
Wording of Job Advertisement
LinkedIn put out some
research a few years ago about what job candidates look for in a job ad, as opposed to what the author thinks should go in the ad. LinkedIn offers 7 tips for writing job posts that attract candidates:
- Keep it concise:
Write shorter job posts to get more applicants.
- Be careful of getting too casual: Don’t go overboard with a casual tone if you want to appeal to everyone.
- Let candidates know what’s in it for them:
Focus on job details, requirements, and pay.
- Don’t spend too much time talking up your company:
Don’t let your company become the focus of the job post.
- Define exactly what success looks like:
Set measurable performance goals.
- Get your job post up early in the week: Expect to get most applications in the first half of the work week.
- Use gender-neutral words for greater diversity: Know that men tend to apply more readily than women.
How to Apply
Receiving lots of applications is very annoying, and amongst the dozens, there could be a superstar, but how do you find it in a time-efficient manner? One idea is how you ask candidates to respond. You could ask them to write a one-page cover letter that covers the essential criteria and why they would be a good fit for the team. Alternatively, ask them to email you for information and the application pack. This approach allows you to easily cull applicants who don’t follow the instructions and discourages candidates who are simply applying to dozens of jobs. As a final note, I would also recommend you include a specific closing date with a time, and that any late applicants are ignored.
Record all Interactions
Record all interactions you have with a candidate, and sometimes a pattern will emerge. A candidate being slow to respond to your attempts at contact may be a one-off and something to ignore, or if it happens more than once, then perhaps we have a pattern and a behavioural signal that indicates the candidate may be disorganised or carefree, or something else. Either way, it’s free data about the candidate that is more natural or realistic when compared to an interview. Record everything.
This article is part of a series on modernising recruitment. In
Part 2, we explore evidence-based hiring practices, including psychometric testing.
Small Changes, Big Results: The Tiny Tweaks That Transform Recruitment
The
small change that delivers dramatically better hiring decisions is simple:
- Screen candidates first
- Test second
- Interview last
