Weekend Herald

Get the recruitmen­t house in order

- Tom O’Neil

Would you ever authorise an advertisem­ent about your products and services that is inaccurate, has typos, incorrect phone numbers and does not reflect your brand? Of course not. However, it astounds me, the lack of profession­alism many people have towards advertisin­g for executives, management and staff.

Impacting your company’s brand

How do you want your business to be portrayed in the marketplac­e? Sadly, for many organisati­ons, their recruitmen­t advertisin­g is a poor reflection of how they want to be viewed by prospectiv­e leaders and team members interested in being employed by them.

When you consider how important it is to get the right person for your business, your advertisem­ent must have a number of key characteri­ses:

Accuracy

I am consistent­ly amazed about the lack of accuracy in many recruitmen­t advertisem­ents. Designing a CV for a CEO level customer recently, I came across an advertisem­ent from a leading internatio­nal recruiter with incorrect informatio­n in it. When my client challenged the informatio­n, the recruiter simply stated “oh … sorry … That must have been left in from a previous advertisem­ent by my PA.” When you are charging $30K+ for recruitmen­t services, you need to do a lot better than that.

Job requiremen­ts do change from time to time, even though the job title may stay the same. New legislatio­n, technology, industry challenges and current team skills may mean that you need to think a little harder about who and what you are seeking .

If you ensure your informatio­n is accurate, it will help you save time in the long run, not having to screen through candidates that do not match what you are actually seeking.

About Us

Its always great to have an initial statement from the organisati­on, briefly stating who they are, what they do and some of their key values. It’s important to make this inspiring, lookingfor candidates who want to join a company for more than money.

Fit

How does the role fit within the organisati­on, and what are its overarchin­g goals,themes and objectives?

Role Responsibi­lities

Make sure this is an accurate reflection of what the role is actually about and is clear in its responsibi­lities. One continual criticism from my CV.CO.NZ clients is that so many advertisem­ents are really “waffly” and don’t say anything of use in this part.

Skills Seeking

Ensure you are clear in what the ideal candidate will possess in terms of skills, experience and expertise, allowing prospectiv­e employees to “self-select”. Again, doing this well at the outset will save you loads of time later on, not having to screen through candidates who are just plain wrong for your opportunit­y.

Contact

Finally, make it easy for people to apply for the role. Recently I came across a vacancy online that had the usual “Apply Now” button displayed. After a client didn’t hear anything from the company after a couple of days, they followed up and were told that the company was not actually accepting online applicatio­ns, but to apply to the HR department instead. Remember – your job advertisem­ents are a wider reflection of your brand, attracting the most important influencer­s of all to your company – your own future employees.

Contact Tom for a free LinkedIn or

CV review, or to be your personal career coach. Visit www.CareerCoac­h.nz or www.CV.co.nz to find out more.

 ?? Picture / Getty Images ??
Picture / Getty Images
 ??  ??

Newspapers in English

Newspapers from New Zealand