[vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]To hire entry-level employees in 2022, hiring managers, talent acquisition leaders, and campus recruiters need to work together to create a hiring process that works for recent—and soon-to-be—college grads. Your team can’t rely on a one-size-fits-all recruiting process to attract and secure diverse, qualified job-seekers in this generational.
HOW TO TWEAK YOUR RECRUITING STRATEGY FOR ENTRY-LEVEL TALENT
Entry-level job-seekers aren’t so different from your average experienced or executive-level hire. However, underestimating the importance of those differences can leave entry-level job candidates feeling alienated from your company and turning to more relatable, accessible competitors.
-So, why is hiring for entry-level positions different from other roles? There are two primary differences when it comes to hiring for entry-level positions in 2021:
- 1. The generational gap
- 2.Entry-level candidates are usually seeking their first full-time jobs
HOW TO DETERMINE THE CHARACTERISTICS YOU NEED IN ENTRY-LEVEL EMPLOYEES
To hire the right candidates, you need to create an entry-level candidate profile that works for your business. A candidate profile is an assessment of the characteristics, skills, and experience required to fill your roles.
So, don’t just ask, “What qualities should you be looking for in entry-level employees?” Ask, “Which qualities should we be looking for in our entry-level employees?”
How do you create an entry-level candidate profile that attracts top talent? Your candidate profile will influence the way you market your roles and your company. The most obvious instance of this is your job description. To determine what should go into your candidate profile and job description, coordinate with both hiring managers and successful employees to see which traits are the hallmark of a great employee for a particular position.
Ask questions like:
- Which soft skills are important on that particular team?
- Which technical skills are most important for entry-level employees in this role?
- What are the personality traits or characteristics that can make entry-level folks successful?
Of course, hiring managers and successful employees are the best resources for this kind of information, but it’s also important to look at competitors, too. What are the best companies in your industry looking for in their candidates? What are they putting in their job descriptions? Information like this can help you determine what you’re missing and how to fill those gaps.
TIPS FOR ENTRY-LEVEL RECRUITING:
Determine the right interview questions to ask entry-level candidates. Entry-level candidates are often short on the kind of experience needed to tackle behavioral questions. However, by refocusing these questions and letting candidates know that answers can pertain to experiences in school clubs, class projects, or volunteer work, you can get more telling answers and put candidates at ease.
Provide the right information in entry-level job descriptions. Job descriptions are often the first impression your employer brand makes on an individual. They shouldn’t be the last impression, but they might be if your job descriptions provide too few details or too much minutiae. Give them a broad overview of the role, the skills they’ll need, and what the company is like. And don’t forget—job descriptions are a give-and-take. Let them know what they might gain: mentorship, exposure, training, and more.
Automate applicant review, interview scheduling, and other tedious, time-consuming tasks. Many recruiters are uncomfortable admitting it, but much of their time is spent on largely mindless tasks like scheduling interviews, sending form emails, and reviewing applicants for basic criteria like visa status and willingness to relocate. Luckily, you can automate these things with the right technology and vendor partnerships, saving hundreds of hours and freeing you up to focus on the essentials.
5 Best Strategies for Hiring Entry-Level Employees
1. Know your ideal candidate.
Unless there is a clear picture of what a great employee would look like in a particular role, it’s next to impossible to identify those traits in candidates. Not to mention, it’s difficult for candidates themselves to determine if they have the right skills for the job when they apply.
Whenever an entry-level position opens up, sit down and describe how the perfect employee would act in the role. What strengths would best contribute to his or her success? What traits would help this person mesh with the rest of the team?
Get input from those who would manage the employee as well as from people who have held the position in the past. That will create a full profile of the ideal candidate. Then, while you interview each candidate, compare how he or she stacks up against that criteria. It’ll be much easier to identify who the best fit for the job is.
2. Involve the team.
In the past, having more people involved in the hiring process meant unnecessarily drawing everything out. Schedules needed to be coordinated. Days were spent waiting for everyone to review resumes and references. Then a decision had to be made. The process was less than efficient.
Now, however, new technologies make a collaborative hiring approach easier. Video interviews can be reviewed whenever that’s convenient, so there’s no need to find a time when everyone can meet with the candidate. Cloud storage allows input from team members all over the world. And data-driven candidate tracking programs make it easy to quickly and accurately compare top applicants.
So, instead of more heads complicating the process, a hiring team can provide better perspectives during the hiring process.
3. Track new talent pools.
It’s easy to get stuck in a talent pool rut. If there’s a particular candidate source that worked in the past, it seems logical to keep returning to it over and over again. However, that closes off new, possibly better, options.
4. Measure performance metrics
No matter what the position is, measuring quality of hire is the key to improving the overall hiring process. Measurements provide insights about what screens are most effective in weeding out bad hires as well as determining what types of traits are typical of high performers.
This is particularly important with entry-level candidates. As they grow and develop over time, it’s important to look for features indicative of high performers. Did employees who went on to become successful managers answer specific interview questions a certain way? Did they undergo different training? Are they motivated by something unique?
5.Have a promotion plan
Entry level candidates are looking for a job and not far behind their first role many will be considering what’s next? Rather than be offended by that perspective have a plan to help them envision their future within your company. Work with them and show them the different career paths internally and how to obtain the skills to achieve their goals. Plan for how your company can use entry-level hires to grow your internal candidate pipeline for future promotions.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row]
