Hiring used to be a straightforward process. You’d hang a “Now Hiring” sign and wait for the candidates to come rolling in. The hiring process for today’s businesses is no longer that simple.
In today’s skilled workforce, we need the most talented people filling every slot, not just any regular Joe. In an up market, talented people that are currently unemployed are harder and harder to come by. As MSPs, we can only afford to bring on the best and brightest, because these professionals will ultimately pay for themselves time and time again.
Our competition also knows that good talent is hard to come by, so they’re holding on with everything they can. That means MSPs can use their own talents to attract new professionals. Salaries, benefits, perks, company culture — it’s all being used to retain top talent.
This has required the best recruiters to develop new tactics to attract fresh candidates. Here’s the good news: This recruiting strategy should already be familiar to you because it incorporates quite a few sales techniques.
The newest best practices in recruiting
- Direct sales tactics. Think about your candidates like prospects. Build a candidate profile and get started with outreach via cold calling and networking.
- Refined candidate profiles. Your profile should include all the must-have qualities in a candidate, not just the “would-be-nice qualities” of the “mythical purple unicorn candidate. With the must-haves in hand, your hiring team can better spot the ideal candidate out in the wild.
- Focus on fit instead of quantity. Having a stream of potential clients in your sales pipeline is comforting, but 100 bad leads does your business no good. Same deal with 100 bad candidates. Instead, focus on candidates that fit. Aggressively filter out candidates even before the interview stage, so you’re only interacting with those candidates who are most likely to serve your business well.
- Have better, deeper conversations. In sales, you excel at listening to prospects’ wants and needs. Tap into those conversation skills, so you really understand what candidates want out of their career and how they believe they can impact your business.
- Refined candidate pitch. At the beginning of this article, we discussed how hard it is to capture talent in today’s market. It’s time to sell the position — and company — to the candidate. What is it about the compensation, perks, and company culture that make it stand out? Start forming an emotional connection with the candidate to seal the deal.
While the recruiting process has definitely changed, it has evolved into something familiar. If you’re not the one actively interviewing potential candidates, you should coach your hiring team on sales practices that they can use.
With a revised recruiting strategy in place, you’ll fill those vacancies faster and keep them filled longer. That means you’ll be able to get back to focusing on what you do best.
Photo: fizkes / Shutterstock
