How can smaller businesses compete for top talent?

Do you find that you are missing out on candidates because they receive another job offer before you have completed your recruitment process? As staff in smaller businesses usually have far more diverse roles than large corporates (where employees tend to specialise), being lumped with the recruitment process as another project to juggle can take you to tipping point.

Often, applications are received into an inbox, attempt to be managed via an Excel spreadsheet and the result is a long list of names but no idea of the suitability for the role or the company. Imagine being able to immediately identify people who had the relevant skills or attitude to perform in your role, and you could cut the recruitment process in half?  We see so many small businesses missing out on great candidates because of slow or ineffective recruitment strategies. Having efficient processes is critical, for big AND small companies to streamline recruitment and ensure you hire as quickly as possible.

Here are some ideas to increase the time to hire in your organisation  

• Look at your application process – how easy is it for candidates to apply with you? Are you asking them to jump through hoops or complete complex application forms with information already in their resume? Keep it simple.
• Think outside the box – ask applicants to submit an introductory video of themselves first or as part of their application so you can have some face time before deciding on your shortlist.
• Phone or Skype interview to speed up the initial selection process
• Consider using a response management tool to manage and categorise incoming applications – there are some incredibly cost effective solutions on the market (such as the Talent Propeller response manager tool you can use on a per job basis for less than $100)
• Keep your applicants engaged with emails updating them on your process. Leaving candidates hanging for weeks on end with no communication is a sure-fire way to alienate them or loose them! If you are using a response management tool emailing can be quick and effortless.
• Think of the environment and stop printing CVs! If you are taking CVs home to review in front of the TV – STOP! Use a response management tool that categorises your applicants in order of suitability as soon as they have applied! Magic.

We would be happy to discuss other recruitment process strategies with you – just get in contact.

Sharon Ballantyne Davies is the Founding Director of Talent Propeller and is also the director of businesses Big Splash and Tech Engine. Between her businesses, Sharon has been the driving force behind the success of the various international offices. A visionary entrepreneur, particularly in the recruitment and HR industries, she is always relentlessly looking for new and better ways of doing things.

You can reach Sharon here

There are 168 hours in a week - what do you do with them?

There are 168 hours in a week; this is immutable truth.  That sounds like a lot, but is it really enough time to cover the demands of a successful career, family involvement, and everything else that makes up a fulfilling life? Let’s do the back-of-the-envelope calculation.

Starting with those 168 hours, first take away 49 just for sleep. Don’t try to cheat on this. If you are getting less than 7 hours a night, you are probably not resting enough and your decreased performance will take its toll on the rest of the hours of the week.

So you've really got 119 hours. Let’s assume you’re an ambitious professional and subtract 56 for work. That would amount to working 8 hours a day, 7 days a week – or, if your weekends are off-limits, 11+ hours a day on weekdays only. I know some of you put in more time than this however, outside of very few professions (and peak times at others) no one really needs to – so if you do, you are probably working inefficiently or being pressured to uphold unrealistic expectations. In fact, research shows that productivity craters after 6 hours a day. If you work more than 56 hours a week, you may need to examine your time use.

Assuming 56, then, you still have 63 hours. But take out two more chunks of non-fun activity – 7 hours per week of commuting, and 13 hours per week of errands and routine housework – and you’re down to 43 hours. This is the amount of time you have for family and other aspects of life.

Childcare, cooking, other responsibilities on the home front certainly take effort, but they can also serve as family connecting time. Let’s put you down for 20 hours of those.

Guess what: that leaves you with a full 23 hours. Maybe you've been saying you don’t have time for exercise, but it seems you do (and exercise makes you more effective the rest of your week at work and at home). Let’s devote 3 hours to that – that still gives you 20 hours of free time to do whatever else makes you happy and healthy. It’s surprising isn't it? With a little prioritizing and planning, work and life aren't so impossible to balance.

So here’s the real question:  Why are we always so stretched? Why doesn't 168 hours actually feel like enough time?  I can name three culprits: time sucks, time confetti, and technology. And those suggest three ways to get your life back.

Don’t succumb to time sucks.

These are those trivial activities that, once you get into them, are so comfortable that you just keep doing them. It takes real resolve to limit yourself to just a few hours of TV or gaming a week, or just one fantasy sports team, or just 30 minutes a day on Facebook. But try keeping a diary and adding up the hours you’re spending now, and you might just gain that resolve.

Stop tossing time confetti.

In her book Overwhelmed, author Brigid Schulte makes an important distinction between time chunks and time confetti. The best way to use your free time, and make it really feel like free time, is to block it off in chunks. A dedicated hour of play with your kids feels like more time than four quick, distracted 15-minute interactions in between other stuff. The big problem with time confetti, Schulte says, is that it amounts to “contaminated time” which prevents pure enjoyment, relaxation, focus, and mindfulness.

Start being the boss of your technology.

Smartphones, email, and other communication technology are great assets in the quest to get the most out of a day, but they can also create the perceived need to be accessible to work 24/7. Set limits such as “no screen hours,” letting everyone at work know the single time you’ll check email each night, and banning devices from the dinner table or family room. Lots of others have written about how unplugging actually leads to higher productivity.

I’m surely not the first to point out that your week contains 168 hours. It’s a staple of time management books and courses. But until you go through the exercise yourself of adding up your weekly commitments, you probably won’t find the almost three hours per day potentially left over. Of course, all our situations differ and some face more challenges and time commitments than others, but knowing that you have 168 hours might be the motivation you need to prioritize and make the changes that will make life more satisfying.

Sharon Ballantyne Davies is the Founding Director of Talent Propeller and is also the director of businesses Big Splash and Tech Engine. Between her businesses, Sharon has been the driving force behind the success of the various international offices. A visionary entrepreneur, particularly in the recruitment and HR industries, she is always relentlessly looking for new and better ways of doing things.

You can reach Sharon here

Invest to attract the best!

Recruiting should be seen as an opportunity to show pride in your workplace and your organisations fantastic culture. It is a time where employers can entice quality candidates by honestly appealing to job seekers needs. 

Arriving at Talent Propeller fresh from months of job seeking gives me an insight into how hard it is to be motivated to really want to work for an organisation when a job advert is poorly written, or written with the wrong intentions in mind. 

What some clients don't understand is you want to allure the highest quality candidates to be desperate to get the position. You don't want to scare them off with confusing tedious explanations of responsibilities or throw rules at their face before they have even entered the door. Who wants to work for an organisation that bombards you with strict guidelines to even apply for the job? 

Obviously if there are certain qualifications, skills or licenses needed for a position these should be mentioned but not drummed into candidates. Fluffy skills that every job seeker thinks they have should not be mentioned. Of course everyone has great communication skills if you ask them and this just makes more reading and more chance of you losing a potential employees attention. 

What employers need to realise is advertising a vacancy is exactly that, advertising. You need to sell your product! Aren’t you proud of the people you have working with you now? Aren’t you proud of how you treat your staff? Take the time to think about why you and your company are so great to work for and you might find more suitable fitted candidates start applying and actually passionately want to join you on your journey. 

If you would like a free appraisal on your current advertising, please contact us

Why is the design of your recruitment adverts so important?

Simple answer – it tells a story of your organisation. Would you design shoddy marketing material and send that to a client? Of course not, so why not put the same care and attention into your recruitment ads. After all, these people are going to be the face of your organisation if hired, so it make sense to paint a positive picture right from the first point of contact.

If you fail to apply care and attention to your recruitment ads, the quality of applicants can drastically reduce. If your wish-list is to hire a professional, intelligent, motivated and skilled individual, then you need to appeal to these people through your advert, and untidy content, uninspiring copy and a poor layout will not help you achieve your goal.  

Good design is fundamental to the success of any ad and what you produce will ultimately impact the impression that people in the market have on you. 

With three seconds to make an initial impression, one of the most effective ways to stand out from the crowd is to ensure your advertising is eye catching and professional.  However, the look of your advert is only stage one. You need informative, powerful and at times witty copy to engage with readers, inspire them to read your entire advert and motivate them enough to apply.

In addition to this, remember that advertising extends beyond just placing an advert in the paper or online when you have a vacancy to fill. It also includes how you consistently present your organisation to the market and what impression potential employees have about your company. In today's hugely online driven market, it is crucial for all types of companies to have an online presence. This can be as simple as a one page website where job seekers can read all about you, and why they should work for you.

Talent Propeller is the only recruitment services provider that has an inhouse advertising agency.  We create unique and personalised templates for our clients and best of all, we don’t charge anything for our creative services.  This means, design and copyediting services for free!  If you would like a no-obligation review of your current advertising and recommendations on how it could be improved, get in contact with us.

The seven steps to improving your recruitment processes

Review your advertising strategy
If your recruitment strategy is to simply place an advert on Seek each time you need to recruit, you are selling yourself short. The recruitment market is moving quickly and new media choices are launching every day. From websites targeting graduates and people starting their careers to media aimed at parents returning to the workforce, through to mediums for experienced workers, you need to ensure you are advertising in the media that your target market is looking at.  

Talent Propeller is the only recruitment services provider that has an in-house advertising agency. We provide our clients with free design and copywriting services to ensure their adverts are unique, stand out and most importantly are booked to the most relevant media to attract the right candidate.


Give yourself an honest appraisal of your employment brand
If we asked 100 people what they thought of your organisation, what would they say? Would they even know who you are? Employment branding is not just for big corporates with big budgets. The term ‘employment brand’ is essentially the image people have in the market of your organisation as place to work.  

If you think you are too small to have an employment brand, think again. If you have advertised more than 6 times in the past 12 month period, you are big enough to have some sort of employment ‘image’ in the marketplace.  So how do people get an impression of your company which is ultimately deemed your ‘employment brand’? It starts from how you present your adverts – how professional are they? How responsive are you to job seekers when they apply to you? Have you acknowledged all applications and updated all candidates on the outcome of their application?  How quickly do you process applications? Are candidates waiting 2, 3, 4 or more weeks to hear the outcome of their application? All these interactions (or lack of interactions!) are creating an impression of your business in the market, otherwise known as your employment brand. If you have an inefficient recruitment process due to lack of time or too many applications to handle, your employment brand will no doubt be suffering.

You can rectify this by implementing a candidate management tool (such as the Talent Propeller system) that allows you email candidates at the touch of a button to update them on the outcome of their application.


Look beyond your inbox as a means to manage applications
If you are still managing applications via your inbox or, shock horror, by post, you need to get with the times. Candidate management systems can be a life saver when it comes to managing applications quickly and efficiently.  There are many options on the market with varying price tags. The Talent Propeller candidate management system starts from $1.95 per candidate who applies with you, or a flat $70+GST. If the time saving is two hours or more, the tool has essentially paid for itself! 

Remember, the faster you manage applications the more positive the candidate experience is, and the better your employment brand will become.


Know what you are good at and relinquish control
If you are an Office Manager or Financial Controller, no doubt you took years to perfect your art.  Engaging the services of a recruitment expert can mean a faster time to hire and reduced delays in other work. You don’t need to outsource the entire process – even just getting support to assist with initial screening, phone interviews or reference checks can increase productivity of the recruitment process.  Talent Propeller offers our clients the ability to outsource all or part of the recruitment process on an ‘as-needed’ basis, meaning when you get busy, you call in the experts to help you.


When looking for solutions, calculate the total cost of recruitment
If you are new to recruitment or have it as one of the many jobs you are responsible for in the company, you may be shocked when you add up your hourly rate with the cost of advertising to reach a ‘total cost per hire’ price. The average company spends $500 on advertising one vacancy, then spends 6 hours to review all applications, schedule interviews and meet candidates face to face. This means your cost per hire can quickly escalate to $1000 plus. You may find a shortlisting service such as Talent Propeller’s Shortlisters service a viable and cheaper option.


Skills test to avoid disappointment
You never really know the level of a candidates skill until they start, so as part of your recruitment process, undertaking a skills test can help you make informed decisions. A Receptionist who can’t type, a Data Entry Clerk with inaccurate entry or an Accounts Clerk who has beginner knowledge of Excel…. These scenarios can cost your business money and reduce productivity.  Another consideration is credit checks, criminal checks and licence checks. If anyone in your organisation is likely to drive a company car, handle company finances or be involved in confidential material, investing $25* in a check such as this could save you thousands of lost dollars.

Talent Propeller provides skills tests, personality profiles, attitude assessments and a full  list of background checks, ordered on an ‘as needed’ basis.


Never forgo reference checks
The last but critical part of the recruitment process is to conduct a proper reference check. A well-constructed reference should highlight for you the strengths and weaknesses of your candidate and it should be provided by a previous manager. Many companies cut corners on taking a detailed reference as their mind is ‘already made up’ and they simply want to confirm their assumptions on a person. This is a dangerous approach to take and may lead to disastrous outcomes. 

A proper reference should confirm the identity of the referee and confirm it is the candidates prior manager, as fair and balanced questions that require a full answer (not just a yes or no) and should provide a balanced overview of a person’s ability in the role they performed. Be warned of glowing references and no areas or skills needing to be improved! 


If you would like to discuss any subjects raised in this blog, feel free to contact us.