Sourcing the right candidates: top tips for employers looking to stay secure and competitive

Hiring the best and brightest talent for your organisation isn’t always easy. The recruitment process can be a long conveyor belt of different sub-processes – from sourcing to selecting and to making an offer – but every single stage has an important part to play in getting the best talent onboarded. The key to effective hiring starts by knowing how to source qualified candidates who are a great fit for your business – getting this wrong can be costly in terms of time, money and resources.

With the COVID-19 pandemic likely to lead to more candidates applying for a smaller number of roles, the job market is going to become even more competitive. Understanding how to source and eventually appoint the right candidate is arguably going to be more important than ever.

1. Verify your candidates early on

With cases of document fraud in the employment application process still rife and the commercialisation of fake qualifications growing, the biggest challenge for many employers today is sourcing candidates swiftly, but also safely. In light of this, TrueProfile.io believes that for roles which require either highly qualified individuals or very specific qualifications in order to be considered for the job, the first important step employers should be taking is integrating a pre-employment verification process. This should be done at the start of the hiring process, involving a comprehensive screening of a candidate’s details early on, including their identity and education credentials.

Asking to see a candidate’s qualifications, such as a degree certificate, simply isn’t good enough anymore; some of the counterfeit qualifications out there are of such high quality that it is becoming increasingly difficult to discern them from the real thing. This is why it’s essential that employers – especially those that are legally obliged to verify the professional documents of job applicants – are extremely vigilant in their recruitment processes, ensuring they have effective measures in place to verify the qualifications of their applicants and subsequent employees or that they use recruitment databases where candidates are pre-verified. By doing so, they can keep their business protected at a time of increased instability and make sure they are sourcing the candidates with the right skills and qualifications for their organisation.

2. Use reputable partners

This links to a second top tip for employers over the coming months, particularly for those that may not have the internal capacity to conduct the required levels of background screening: use reputable partners to speed up the process of sourcing the right candidates, without compromising on security. By partnering with reputable experts, particularly those that offer a ‘verification-as-a-service’ (VaaS) solution, employers can have peace of mind that they have put the necessary safeguards in place to protect their business and source the right candidates.

3. Tap into an international pool of candidates

 Employers must also start thinking outside the box and avoid being confined by locality when sourcing prospective candidates. By looking to source internationally, employers can expand their talent pools and increase the potential of finding the right candidate to meet their needs. Further, with remote working expected to be more common, it is likely that not all employees will need to step foot in the office. With this in mind, employers have an opportunity to cast their net wider and connect with candidates they may not have necessarily considered previously, which may allow them to fill important gaps in their organisation and reach a wider, more lucrative, talent pool.

4. Re-emphasise a ‘hiring for culture’ approach

Finally, employers should place an increased emphasis on hiring for culture. Hiring for cultural fit means looking beyond just a job fit. Of course, you want to find a candidate that has the right skills to excel in the role. But you also need to find a person that shares or will be able to adapt to your company’s core values, attitudes and beliefs. Importantly, what it doesn’t mean is overlooking certain cultures and lifestyles or dismissing personal values you don’t agree with. Integrating this ‘hiring for culture’ approach into the wider sourcing process will ensure employers are connecting with the candidates that can unite behind their company’s shared mission, which in turn can give them a much-needed competitive edge.

Not only should employers start looking to enhance the security of their sourcing process, but they should also be looking to widen their net and source from an international talent pool, as well as integrating a ‘hiring for culture’ approach when vetting prospective candidates. By doing so, they will have the tools at their disposal to get the right personnel in place, giving them the competitive edge they may need over the coming months.