A collaborative hiring process goes a long way towards gauging how well a new hire will work with the entire existing team. The essentials of collaborative hiring are inviting all relevant team members, having freedom to share candidates, and keeping lines of communication open.
According to a recent SmartRecruiters survey, 70% of people who have hired say their company includes at least three current workers in each hiring decision. At SmartRecruiters, the social recruiting platform, David is Director of Social Media, Ben is Director of Business Development, and Amy Craig is Director of Product Marketing. They are here to tell you how to hire collaboratively:
(1.) Invite All the Relevant Team Members
David: Build flexible hiring teams. Whoever the new person will work with should have input in hiring for that position. If you are hiring a project manager who will work heavily with the marketing and sales team, that candidate should interview with people from both the marketing and sales teams.
Ben: Crowdsource your interview. Have the entire office submit questions, and use those as a guide for your conversation with the candidate. That way, everyone's personalities and concerns are represented.
Amy: Make your recruiting processes transparent, easy and social to essentially turn all of your employees into recruiters. Top performers usually know other top performers, so it’s important for employers to tap into one of their best sources of talent--their employees.
(2.) Having the Freedom to Share Candidates & Jobs
Amy: If you don’t have a Facebook company page, you’re missing out on the opportunity to turn fans into hires. Share your jobs on your social networks and let your fans, followers and connections do the rest.
David: A great talent is a great talent. But a great talent may not be right for a particular role. Collaborative hiring requires the mindset of I will refer that talent to a colleague in a more relevant department within the company. Even if that colleague is not hiring right now, this mindset will create a better talent pipeline in the long run.
Ben: No one cares what you had for lunch. Tweet your latest job opening instead, or the company you just started working for. Companies should give their employees tools for sharing jobs and for offering their social contacts as candidates. Make your employees’ social networking person-hours more beneficial to your company’s hiring processes.
(3.) Keeping the Lines of Communication Open
Ben: Don’t burn a bridge to a potentially great candidate. Just because he or she was not a good fit for one job, doesn’t mean that candidate won’t make a perfect hire in another position. Stay in touch with strong candidates and keep them abreast of new openings.
Amy: Great people are hard to find, so when you’re able to attract them, with or without an available job opening, you should keep the lines of communication open with all the talent in your pipeline.
David: Talk to your colleagues. Make sure you consolidate your notes in one easy to read place, ideally one with a social network style real time feed.
Currently, our recent survey found that only 24% of recruiters and hiring managers have said to “know where things stand” with a current candidate. But what percentage of you have seen the most recent Facebook photo of your high school acquaintance’s new baby? Probably more than 24%. In this age of real time updates, SmartRecruiters believes that enterprise software should encourage social behavior. For, hiring a great fit works best when you leverage the inputs, compatibilities, and personalities of your company.
SmartRecruiters is the free social hiring platform with easy candidate management and a recruiting service marketplace that includes sourcing from Simply Hired.
