Last week, I was lucky enough to be able to present to Victorian Leaders, on my thoughts on how businesses can deal with a talent short market. In a short period of time the market has turned from one that was very client led, where the candidate supply was very high, to a market where demand is high, but the supply of candidates is at an all-time low in over ten years.

With that in mind, the workshop was presented to the owners of primarily small and mid-sized businesses, looked at what they could do in terms of process and interviewing to ensure they are in position to attract the right talent for their business.

Here are my top ten takeaways:

1.   The market is talent short at the moment, and that is across all sectors. If not now, then soon, it will be one of the biggest challenges to economic growth continuing, and businesses being able to grow.

2.   With that in mind, it is important to look at your recruitment process, evaluate whether it is a purely reactive process, or one that is proactive and allows you t stay ahead of the market.

3.   Look at your process and ask:

• When does my process start?
• How long does my process take?
• How do we source people?
• Do we know what we are hiring for?
• Do we have what we need inside the business already?
• Do we know what potential employees want?
• Do we know our story? What is the opportunity?
• Is the recruitment experience positive for all applicants?
• Do we have partners that we trust to assist us with the process if we need it? 

4.   Look at how you can put time aside to speak to potential people when you are not recruiting.

• How can you talent map or talent pool the right people, and ensure you have the time to talk to the appropriate people about your story?
• Look at how you can use a variety of means to ensure your story is being told, from online and social media to internal recruitment teams, direct recruitment, staff referrals, partnerships with educators or other bodies and relationships with recruitment partners.

5.   What will you do if you can’t find the right person?

• Where can you be flexible? What is nice to have and what do you need?
• What can you train and what can’t be trained?

6.   Remember that the right person will be a mix of the right attitude, the right fit and ‘some’ of the skills you want. You want there to be a skills gap, so there is room for your new employee to grow, but you don’t want to compromise on attitude or fit.

7.   When you’ve got the right people you need to ensure your conversations are an engaging two way process. You need to be able to tell your story and give the candidate the chance to tell theirs. Don’t think of the conversation as ‘question time’, but rather ‘story time!’

8.   What does your story need to be? It needs to be believable, evocative, useful, emotive and contagious, and demonstrable. This is your story, the story of where you work and the opportunities it can provide so you need to be passionate about it. Think about the opportunity, not the job!

9.   Now let them tell their story, that you can prompt with questions. Consider how it relates to your story, and whether you connect with the story. Does it work with the skills, fit, and attitude that you require? Does it allow for the diversity and inclusiveness of thought that every team needs? Do you know what you need in your team? Is it a story with examples? Do you know what you want in an answer?

10. Finally let them ask you questions. The questions someone asks will tell a lot about them and what is important to them. Do they match what is important to you? This is a great chance to clarify your story and to personalise it even more.

Finally, always ensure that the process is a positive one for all involved, the candidate who gets the role, as well as those who do not get the role. Every person in the process is someone who can help tell your story to who they know.

At Project Resource Partners, we want to be able to help our partners tell their story to an audience of active and passive candidates, to increase your ability to find the right people for your business. If you need help spreading your story to a wider range of business transformation professionals, then contact me on 0419 607 662.