Hiring someone new to fill a role can be a long and often time-consuming process.
Knowing exactly where to spend your energy and resources can be a difficult decision. Whether you’re looking to use online job boards, want to post targeted ads, or plan on sending out direct emails to potential applicants, it is crucial to find the right strategy that not only optimizes your recruiting time but also creates the best candidate experience possible.
As a leading accountant recruitment agency in Ontario, our team of experts at AHK Accounting Recruiters understands the importance of attracting top-tier talent while establishing long-lasting relationships. The role you’re looking to fill may be ideal for many candidates. However, if the recruitment process doesn’t meet the mark, your potential talent pool could go looking elsewhere.
With that in mind, consider these five ways you might be negatively impacting the hiring experience.
1. Over-investing in pre-screening
Some recruitment strategies prefer to use phone screenings to eliminate job seekers whose qualifications don’t meet the basic criteria for a role, or as a way of getting to know potential candidates better. While this might seem like a good idea to save time in the long run, these types of screening calls aren’t actually the most efficient method to narrow down the applicant pool.
On the other hand, as an accountant recruitment agency, we know that resumes don’t always paint a full picture of the applicant’s skills or experience. So, relying solely on that approach may not garner the best results either.
Both of these methods ultimately end up costing you more time and potentially create a negative experience for the job seeker by forcing them to engage in a drawn-out pre-screening process.
As part of our recruiting process, we vet our candidates thoroughly to ensure that their experience and skills align with the requirements of a specific job level.
2. Having too long of an interview process
While it’s important to be thorough when conducting an interview, a lengthy process can be redundant for both the recruiter and candidate, not to mention the possibility of deterring top talent away from the position. While it may seem like an effective selection method to host multiple meetings over the course of a month (or two), if the purpose of each additional step cannot be properly articulated, some candidates may not see the value and be turned off before getting to the end.
Keep in mind that some candidates may have a number of opportunities they are considering, so the longer an interview process, the more likely they may choose another role. Being able to determine a clear decision, and deliver the written offer within a timely manner, will help greatly in the long run by ensuring you secure top talent, which will ultimately put you ahead of the competition.
Our accountant recruitment agency specializes in scheduling interviews and provides support throughout the entire hiring process in order to ease the decision-making process.
3. Sticking too much to the basics
Recruiting new employees can often be a slow, tedious process. Considering the amount of time it takes to find the right fit, there are many resources that need to be taken into account when attracting, sourcing, and engaging with potential candidates. These tasks range from big, like screening processes, to basic, such as coordinating schedules and regular back-and-forth communications.
Regardless of whether you’re hiring for a highly complex role or doing a broad volume search, those small tasks will start to pile up, taking away from the time and effort needed to focus on improving candidate experience.
Rather than concentrate on the number of candidates alone, our accountant recruitment agency focuses on quality employees with the qualifications and personality to fit your role and organizational culture.
4. Not narrowing down your tools
Technology has helped improve many processes over the years, including recruitment. Although this has meant that several aspects of hiring have become more efficient, the oversaturation of tools presents an issue of not knowing where to start.
Switching between various emails, video conferencing platforms, online spreadsheets, and other organizational tools for each individual candidate not only wastes time but increases the chance for errors. When the goal is to create a seamless hiring experience, avoiding these types of mistakes is crucial—and more affordable.
Making the transition away from multiple single-purpose platforms can ensure your hiring process is more streamlined, while also minimizing the risk of missing out on top-tier talent. Thankfully, today there are platforms specifically designed with integrated technology that make it possible to complete multiple tasks at once, thus improving overall productivity.
At AHK Accounting Recruiters, we’d rather you focus your time on 10 meaningful interviews than 20 disappointing ones. Don’t let unnecessary software get in the way of an efficient and productive hiring process.
5. Lack of effective communication
Whether or not a candidate is selected, communication still remains one of the key components to establishing a positive recruitment experience. While the hiring process can be very fast-paced at times, and your attention becomes focused on finding the right candidate for the job, it’s still important to provide feedback to every applicant.
Depending on the role, selection pools can be quite large, making it nearly impossible to send out a custom email to every single candidate—that’s understandable. Today, automated emails and other workflow programs make following up a seamless, almost hands-free process.
Our accountant recruitment agency vets the candidates we send you ahead of time, not just with standard interview questions, but also tasks and projects more fitting for an accounting role. This process helps minimize the number of individuals who need to be communicated with while giving you the strongest selection of potential candidates possible.
What to Take Away
The recruitment process can be long, but that doesn’t mean it needs to be inefficient and costly. Take time to review your current hiring strategy, and consider which areas could be either eliminated or better automated.
These unnecessary elements to the process could be what’s standing between you and the ideal candidate for a role. Don’t fall behind the competition!
To learn more about how we can help you recruit the right accountant, call AHK Accounting Recruiters at 833-399-1663 or email us at info@ahkaccountingrecruiters.com.