Find better talent faster
Did you ever try to hire outstanding talent in a short period of time? Did you succeed or did you fail? If you´re not Google, or Apple, or…
Did you ever try to hire outstanding talent in a short period of time? Did you succeed or did you fail? If you´re not Google, or Apple, or Amazon, I assume you have a similar experience like me — I personally failed quite often! I was getting almost no applications, the process took ages or the candidates I wanted to hire just rejected my offer.
I was looking for reasons. It was obvious — it is the others fault. My company is to small, not representative enough, salary range is not attractive and so on.
But actually I was wrong. It was my fault. I wasn´t serious enough about hiring. I didn´t use one of my main skills. I am productmanager at heart! Why didn´t I use my productmanager skills to rethink the way I recruit? Here is what I learned.
(This article refers to my learnings on hiring awesome productmanager, but I am sure, its relevant for all other jobs as well.)
Learning #1 — Put yourself in the shoes of the applicant
What would you be interested in, when looking for a new job? Is it the salary? Is it the brand? What exactly triggers you to apply for a job? There might be people who are looking for the perfect brand to polish their CV, but my assumption is, that most of us are looking for more. Inspiration, a motivated team, an awesome product, great culture, an open mindset, diversity. For most of us it is more than the title and the salary, isn't it?
As a productmanager I can only build awesome products if I understand, what problem I solve, which value I create and how to serve the business needs. There is no big difference between your hiring process and a product, so why don´t you just treat your hiring process as if its a product?
Learning #2 — Create a recruting journey map
Have you ever put yourself in the shoes of an applicant? Or in the shoes of the one writing the vacancy? Or in the shoes of the interviewers? You should! I´ve often experienced, that the entire journey does not match, is incomplete, complicated, leaves to many questions open. If you are a product centric / customer centric company, you should treat your hiring process as if its a customer journey.
Start by identifying and inviting the most important stakeholder. A recruiter, a people lead with hiring experience, people who interview regularely. Check if your company has results from survey with former applicants to look at their feedback. (There are plenty of articles around Customer Journey Mapping online, e.g. here)
If you have to create the map remote, there is a template in Miro you can use. Otherwise just meet in front of a huge whiteboard and start sketching the journey as it is today.
Don´t forget to doublecheck the results with a few people, so you can be sure you have the full picture!
I promise — in most small to medium sized companies the results will be scary, or surprising. Maybe you´ll find areas you can automize, speed up or improve. For sure there is always something you will learn.
Learning #3 — Create a stakeholdermap
Quite often I´ve seen that it wasn´t clear who is part of the interviewing process until the first promising candidate applied. And suddenly everybody is in a rush. Who is part of the first interviews? How many interview rounds do we need? For every open position this happens again an again. What a waste of time!
If you´re in the position of hiring new talent for your team, create a plan. Who is interviewing, when and why? Who is representing, if the first choice is not available? How much time should they invest and what is the focus area for these people? Ask in advance, if those people are willing to support the process and how much time, they have. Ask them if they need anything from you, to better understand what you are looking for.
Start early! Think about it. Its not only the candidate who applies for the job. Its also your company applying for the candidate. So every interview is the chance to outperform. So choose your stakeholder wisely!
Learning #4 — Define your requirements
I have read thousands of job descriptions and I am tired of buzzwords. Copy and paste existing job descriptions is not what you should do. Adding busszwords like “agile”, “autonomous” and “free juice” is not appealing. Define what you really need. What is appealing about the job itself? Does it really need to be a senior position or is a junior or mid level sufficient? Should the person be more experienced in storytelling or in hands on daily business? More Data-driven or tech-savvy? Look at your existing team and think about the perfect match. And than write it down. Take your time. Ask the team to review it. Make sure its not another generous job description.
Learning #5 — Define your application process
Your employee journey is defined. Interviewers are informed. Now its time to go into the details. Think about the following questions:
Which topics shall be covered in the interviews.
I`ve personally been in interviews where I was repeating my CV over and over again. I was asked the same questions from different people. Or my interviewers haven't been prepared at all. Thats a bad first impression and you can easily avoid it. Define the topics you want to be covered. For a productmanager it can be Culture and Teamfit, Strategic Skills, Leadership Skills, Communication Skills, Customercentricity… You defined your requirements already, when writing the job spec. So now its time to transfer it to the interviewprocess. Who is focusing on which area and what would you expect as an outcome? What are questions you would like the interviewers to ask?
Do I need a challenge or task?
A task is an awesome tool to learn more about the candidate, her presentation skillsand her approach to structured thinking. I´ve experienced interviews for Leadership positions, where I was asked to solve tasks for Productmanagers. This is annoying and leaves a strange impression. For me it felt as if the company has no idea, what to expect from true product leaders. So if you decide to add a challenge — create one that is compelling, close to a problem you are solving and matching the experience level of your applicant. If you´ve created the case, share with 3–5 colleagues to figure out, if the case is clear enough for someone who is not yet part of the team!
The candidate should not need longer than 3–4 hours to prepare and 30–45 minutes to present.
What is the service level you commit to?
There is nothing more annoying than losing awesome candidates, because you were to slow. So define early in the process (best case, as part of the employee journey), how long you need to give feedback to incoming applications or when you will get back after interviews. Make sure, you schedule interviews fast.
The best process I´ve ever experienced was 3weeks from sending the application to getting the offer. And I had five interviews and a presentation in between. What an awesome first impression! If you are so serious about recruiting, I am sure you will be serious about other business related topics too!
Learning #6 — Share your expectations with the interviewers
You are clear about your requirements and your servicelevels. Now make sure the other interviewers in the process understand your requirements and your servicelevel and agree to it. Otherwise you have to remind them over and over again.
Hiring the best talent fast is a shared commitment!
The better your colleagues understand, what you are looking for, how the perfect candidate looks like, what you do not want and how important the position is for you and your team, the more likely it is, that you will find a good fit fast!
Learning #7 — Inspire and motivate
As mentioned earlier.
Its not only the talent, applying for the job, its also you, applying for the talent!
So take it serious! Share your vision, as if you´re talking to an investor or your team. Share the challenges you experience and you want to solve. Share why this position is the entry point to an exciting opportunity. Tell your story. Set the candidate on fire! Your goal is, that she/he can´t wait to tell her friends what an awesome company she is interviewing with and how compelling the challenge is!
In the best case, all other interviewers follow the same path and inspire as well. Point taken?
Learning #8 — Iterate and learn
In product, we learn and fail and improve. We iterate rather in small chunks, than building picture perfect solutions no one wants to buy. We talk to customers, relentlessly. We aim to deliver value!
Use the same approach for your hiring process.
When sketching the recruiting process, identify the most important areas and focus to improve them first.
Gather feedback from colleagues involved in the hiring process and ask the candidates for feedback as well. Use your learnings to improve the journey even further.
Define KPI´s to measure your success. Gut feeling and internal feedback is good, but not good enough. Data tells the truth!
In a nutshell
It is not easy to find great talent, but it is not impossible. Do your homework, be honest with yourself, look at your processes. Iterate and improve, gather feedback and implement measurements. I am sure, this will pay off!
Ready to find better talent faster? Start now ;)