What Mistakes Do Companies Make When Hiring Talent?
Hiring for life sciences companies is more competitive than ever before, which means your hiring strategy needs to be equally competitive. That’s why Frank Dolan sat down with Shawn Kerek, the VP of Executive Search at Taylor Partners, to learn best practices—and things to avoid—to have a leg up on the competition, as part of the ARSENAL Leader Lab series.
In this article, you’ll learn about a few of the most actionable takeaways from the interview. Specifically, we’ll talk about three of the mistakes you should avoid to ensure that your talent acquisition strategy is as competitive as possible: ignoring employment branding, not coordinating between hiring managers and HR, and not coordinating between interviews.
At the end, we’ll also explain how you can reach out for a one-on-one conversation with Kerek.
Ignoring Employment Branding
Mixed messages are the biggest thing you want to avoid when hiring. Before starting the process, you need to think about what it is that makes your company the best fit for talent.
Kerek explains that you need to have an understanding of your employer brand. “Whether it’s… really strong leadership, cutting edge technologies, life-saving therapies, great culture, [or] work-life -balance,” you should focus on what makes your organization special, and that message will attract top talent. Ideally, it will “go along with your mission statement or what your goals are as a company.”
Once you know this message, you want to make sure you’re “broadcasting it out through social media, through LinkedIn, through your website, to the marketplace.” You also want to make sure this message is communicated in the job description. You should think of yourself as a brand ambassador—what can I do to demonstrate that this company is really special? This will ultimately promote key brand information that says to passive and active candidates alike, this is the kind of company I want to be a part of.
Not Coordinating Between Hiring Managers and HR
A company’s HR team is a valuable resource during the hiring process. They spend a lot of time working to ensure employees are happy with the corporate culture through things like benefits, so you’ll want to speak with them to determine what advantages you can convey to potential new employees.
Many candidates will be expecting to learn things like benefits, but communicating with HR allows you to share the tantalizing, less common things that a company has to offer.
Not Coordinating Between Interviews
Along with making sure that the message is consistent throughout the business, you also want to make sure it’s consistent within the hiring team.
Kerek explains what you want to avoid when multiple people are interviewing the same candidate. “If you have people just freewheeling the whole way or going by their own style, the candidate may have the same conversation five different times. And you may not learn everything that you need to know. If there’s specific competencies for a role, we will give a different competency to each member of the panels, so you dig in on this person’s problem solving and resiliency, then the next person you will dig into this person’s leadership, and such and such.”
This gives you a more holistic picture of the candidate, as well as how they’ll fit into the company’s current culture.