Quick and Easy Ways to Attract the Candidate You Want to Hire

Finding the right person to hire can be equally exciting and stressful at the same time. You’re motivated to find a new team member who can share the workload yet you’re anxious because the pressure is on not to hire the wrong person. We all want candidates to show us they are as close to perfect as possible. Who doesn’t want someone who can tackle the workload with little or no learning curve? While we want a new hire to deliver the goods, candidates are also inspecting you to see if they should commit to working with you and your team. Candidates take their hopes of an ideal next boss, employer and job very seriously. When you find the candidate that fits everything you need, you have to get them excited about the job, organization and growth potential. The best interviewers paint a descriptive picture of the role, team, experience they will earn and potential for opportunity. The best interviewers also don’t overlook the key ways to attract ideal talent because they know the greatest candidates are coveted by everyone and they interview to win.

Here’s a powerful secret to interviewing, candidates are searching for clues of your business savvy, trustworthiness and signs that you are someone they’d enjoy working with on a daily basis. Candidates need to trust you with their next career move which you need to recognize is a big decision very few take lightly. To build trust with a candidate, be transparent about what’s not ideal in your current role or team and how you cope as well as the opportunities you’ve received and how they’ve benefit your career. The best candidates sense insincerity and crave honesty and authenticity in a future manager or co-worker.

To increase your chances of hiring the best person, show candidates you’ll give them what they need. In a shaky economy, candidates worry more than ever about starting a job that’s unstable or offers limited opportunity for growth. Candidates want to hear more about the role models on your leadership team and how your mentor program works. Explain how your succession programs successfully help navigate the career paths of your team into new and rewarding roles. Show that promoting from within is crucial to your success. Learn each candidate’s career goals and then discuss the specific experience this role can offer so they realize you’ll offer work that’s meaningful to them.

Share examples of flexibility and respect for work life balance. While you never want to promise what you can’t deliver, remember that most candidates today crave flexibility above all else. Encourage interviewers to learn what matters most for each candidate. If you’re current interview process doesn’t devout time to understanding candidate motivator’s start now to gather this feedback. Candidates also want to learn more about your training and development as well as opportunities for lateral learning by joining projects on other teams to ramp of experience quickly. Any examples of how you promote "I’m a business owner" mindset are always well received by candidates. No great future hire wants to be micromanaged; they want to think for themselves and show they can manage their own work. Share how you encourage and support collaboration across teams and set employees up for success.

Define on-boarding, new hire training and mentor processes that the new hire will experience. Many candidates want to know what the early days of working with you will be like. Taking the time to walk through the vision of the early days on the job will remove candidate’s worry. Most people have experienced or have heard horror stories of new hires being thrown to the wolves, baptized by fire and left alone to fend for themselves. Your ideal candidate is likely actively interviewing and comparing your opportunity against several others. As you continue to question the candidate about the role throughout the interview, weave in how the role blends with their expectations and career goals. This is crucial to impress the candidate and demonstrate you’re paying attention to what’s important from their perspective.

Always be able to convincingly answer, "Why should I consider working for your organization?" The more you can make it about what’s in it for them, the more they will want to be part of your team. An interviewer who takesthe time to focus on a candidates needs comes off as a savvy employer who knows how to close the deal. Since your ideal candidate is probably also interviewing with your competitors, the better you attract and connect the more likely you’ll hire who you really want on your team!