Are you a business owner or manager looking to hire an HR professional? HR recruitment can be a daunting task, but with the right approach, you can do it yourself and find the best candidate for your organisation.
So, the time has come to hire an HR professional. Whether it’s replacing a team member or sourcing for a newly created role, your key objective is finding the best person for the job.
You’ve already decided that the ‘DIY’ approach is right for your business, which means you want to ensure a smooth and effective process.
This might be the first HR hire you’ve made. It might even be the first recruitment process you’ve managed. Or you might be a pro HR recruiter who simply wants to ensure they remain top of their HR recruitment game.
Whichever camp you fall into, we’ve got you covered.
As specialist HR recruiters, we’ve compiled the ultimate guide to DIY HR recruitment to help you nail this process from start to finish.
What's Included:
There’s a lot to cover here, so we’ve linked some of the key areas you might want to skip ahead to:
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How to find HR candidatesHow to find HR candidates
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Salary settingSalary setting
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Candidate rejection email templatesCandidate rejection email templates
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Interview questions for HRInterview questions for HR
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Eligibility to workEligibility to work
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Reference checkingReference checking
1. How long does it take to hire an HR professional?
A professional recruitment process can take anywhere from 2-3 weeks, up to 6-9 months.
This length of time is dependent on several factors, such as the complexity and seniority of the hire, whether it’s a permanent or contract position, the number of candidates being considered, whether it’s an urgent find, and a business’s internal selection process.
For a mid-level HR hire, you could expect a process to take an average of 45 days from going live with your vacancy, through to your candidate accepting the job.
You’ve then got to factor in whether the candidate has a notice period to serve and how much time that adds onto the process. Notice periods in HR are typically 1 month at the more junior end, 3 months at the ‘mid-level’, and 6 months at the senior (HRD/CPO) level. Also always remember to check your hire doesn’t fall foul of a non-compete clause!
One of the most influential factors impacting ‘time to hire’ is the internal processes you put in place to assess whether a candidate is a good fit for your business.
For example:
- How quickly you screen CVs and applications
- How many interview stages you set
- How quickly you feedback to candidates between those stages
- How many stakeholders you involve in the interview process
- Whether you include an assessment / psychometric screening element
- Whether you interview face-to-face, virtually or use a combination of both
- What background checks and referencing procedures you put in place.
All of the above will dictate the length of your recruitment process. It’s also worth noting that your screening process for more senior and complex hires will need to be more robust and therefore will take longer to complete.
The cost of mis-hiring at this level can be very expensive (a whole separate topic we will explore in a future blog!)
However, it is essential to keep in mind that an unnecessarily long recruitment process can be frustrating for both you and the candidates who are involved in it.
So whilst ensuring you take the time to thoroughly vet and select the right candidate(s), do not include additional stages and exercises which aren’t strictly necessary.
This will have a negative impact on the process and can, in certain circumstances, result in candidates withdrawing their application and/or being offered a job by another business who was willing to move more quickly.
2. How do I set the salary for my HR hire?
Deciding how much to pay your HR hire can depend on a variety of factors. This would include the role’s responsibilities, the existing salary bands of your other employees, the market conditions, the availability of talent, and the location of the role.
There are various salary benchmarking tools available which we cover in our HR Salary Setting Guide, but for a quick salary sense-check we’d suggest you use Indeed’s Salary Tool.
This tool is free to access, gives you an instant result, doesn’t require you to create a login, and enables you to filter salaries by location.
However, the final salary range you set will require some more detailed exploration into the areas below:
Industry standards
Look at the salaries for similar HR roles in your industry and geographic location to get an idea of the typical salary range. You can use online salary data websites, industry reports, or job listings to gather this information.
Consider the role’s responsibilities
The salary should reflect the responsibilities of the role. The more senior the position or the more complex the HR responsibilities, the higher the salary should be.
A candidate’s experience and qualifications
A candidate with more experience will generally command a higher salary than a less experienced candidate. There’s also likely to be specific experiences that will boost a candidate’s salary, for instance delivering a certain HR project or achieving a particular cost-saving for their business.
Certifications and qualifications also play a part. For instance, does the candidate have a coaching qualification or have they completed their CIPD?
Review your organisation’s budget
Consider the salary range that your organisation can afford to pay based on its budget, financial goals and the wider workforces’ salaries.
Factor in benefits and perks
Don’t forget to consider other benefits that your organisation may offer, such as health insurance, car allowances, pension plans, bonuses, or flexible work arrangements. These all contribute to a candidate’s total remuneration and should be referenced throughout the hiring process (and when advertising the role!)
Expect negotiation
Keep in mind that it’s very likely for a candidate to try and negotiate a preferential salary, so be prepared to have some flexibility in your offer.
By considering these factors, you can determine an appropriate salary range for your new HR hire that is competitive, fair, and aligns with your organisation’s goals and budget.
Still not sure what salary you should pay?
Ask us!
Complete the enquiry form below this article and we will give a complimentary salary benchmark based on our vast experiences in this sector.
3. How can I ensure I’m considering a diverse range of candidates for my role?
Attracting a diverse selection of candidates is essential to building a more inclusive and equitable workplace. Here are some strategies that can help you ensure you are attracting a diverse pool of candidates:
Write an inclusive job description and advert
Ensure that your job description is inclusive and does not use any language that could discourage people from applying. Use gender-neutral language and avoid using words or phrases that may be biased or exclusive.
Post your job in a variety of places
Advertise your role in the places where a diverse range of candidates are likely to see it, such as on job boards that specialise in diversity recruitment, social media platforms, and community organisations.
Partner with diversity organisations
Build partnerships with organisations that focus on diversity and inclusion, such as professional associations for women or minorities, or organisations that support people with disabilities.
Ensure a diverse interview panel
Ensure that the interview panel is diverse and includes people from different backgrounds and perspectives. This can help to avoid unconscious bias and ensure a fair and equitable hiring process.
Upskill your business
Invest in training for yourself and your hiring managers on diversity and inclusion best practices, so you are all aware of your unconscious biases and can screen CVs and conduct interviews in an inclusive and equitable way.
Use blind hiring techniques
Consider using blind hiring techniques, such as removing candidate names and other identifying information from CVs, to ensure that candidates are evaluated solely on their skills and qualifications.
This is a big area and requires further exploration to get it right. However, by following the types of strategies outlined above, you can help ensure that you are attracting a diverse range of candidates to your vacancy.
4. How do I find HR candidates for my role?
In order to find the best HR candidates for your role, there are several recruiting methods you can lean on. These methods can be combined or used in isolation depending on the success you experience with each.
Advertise your role
For a fee, you can pay to post your job advert on job boards like LinkedIn, Indeed, Glassdoor, and other more specialist job sites to attract candidates. You can (and should!) also post your job on your company’s website or careers site, if you have the functionality set up. However, it’s worth noting that responses to your own company’s website are likely to be more limited if you don’t have an established employer brand.
We would always recommend that, if possible, you are always transparent about the salary level when you advertise your role. This will build trust with candidates and ensure the most relevant people apply – saving you significant time speaking to irrelevant candidates.
Use social media
Social media platforms like LinkedIn, Twitter, and Facebook can be used effectively to promote your job opening and reach a wider audience. Using specific hashtags and posting details of your role in online social communities can also be an effective way to target suitable candidates. Asking your employees to comment and share these posts can also be a good way of increasing the reach of your jobs.
Ask for employee referrals
Leaning on your existing workforce to uncover whether they know anyone suitable for your role is a great way to source candidates. Typically, the quality of these referrals is high as employees tend to only refer people that they believe to be good. This approach can be very cost-effective, as typically the only expense incurred is a referral fee / bonus / incentive for the referring member of staff which is set internally as appropriate.
Networking
Attending (and/or hosting) relevant industry events and conferences is a great way to meet potential candidates and make new connections. This can be done in a face-to-face setting or virtually depending on the type of networking opportunity.
Headhunting
With a paid subscription, you can access tools like LinkedIn and CV databases that will enable you to identify and directly approach individuals who have the skills and experience you’re looking for. Once you’ve identified these profiles, you can approach them with a view to getting them interested in the role you’re recruiting.
Before you begin the recruitment activities listed above, it’s important that you have crafted a clear job description, written a compelling advert to articulate why a candidate may be interested in this role / your organisation, and understand the qualifications and skills required for the job to ensure you attract the right candidates.
5. What level of feedback do candidates expect when they apply for a job?
Approximately 6/10 candidates never receive an acknowledgement or reply when they apply for a job.
What’s more, it’s typically the employers themselves who are the worst offenders. This is because employers don’t often have the systems or capacity to manage responses to their job applications, unlike recruitment agencies who are set up to do just this*.
*(Although, some recruitment agencies are better at this than others!)
So what do candidates actually expect from a communication standpoint? At the very least, candidates should receive an acknowledgement that their application has been received, and following this, a further update letting them know if they’re being progressed to the next stage, or not.
Now most candidates are fairly pragmatic that they aren’t going to receive personalised feedback at the application stage. With application volumes often reaching several hundred, it is totally impractical to offer personalised feedback to every candidate who applies for your role.
There just isn’t enough time in the day.
However, this is not a ‘get out of jail free card’ that means candidates shouldn’t receive an update on the status of their application.
In the following section (‘Rejecting Unsuccessful Candidates’) we share a suggested email template for sending to unsuccessful candidates following their application.
So, when is a generic candidate rejection email not adequate? We would argue that if you’ve emailed specific candidates’ questions which they’ve taken the time to answer, then they should receive tailored feedback as to why they’re not progressing to the next stages.
If you’ve interviewed a candidate on the phone, over video or in a face-to-face setting, then they should certainly receive personalised feedback about why they’ve been unsuccessful. And for us, this feedback should be conveyed on the phone as opposed to via email.
In the scenario that you either pause or stop a hiring process, it’s still important to update your candidates in order to manage their expectations. Skip ahead to the next section for an example email template you could share in this instance.
Providing feedback to candidates is an essential part of building a positive employer brand and creating a good candidate experience. It helps candidates feel respected, valued, and appreciated, even if they are not selected for the role.
Always bear in mind that your candidates could be your customers and that people don’t forget a negative experience easily!
And on top of all of that, letting people know where they stand is simply the polite, decent thing to do.
6. How do I reject unsuccessful candidates during the recruitment process?
In the section above we discussed the importance of feeding back to candidates on the status of their job application.
Yes, in an ideal world, every candidate would receive a tailored response to their application. However, the reality is that most companies do not have the time or resources to provide this level of communication; particularly when delivering bad news.
So when it comes to rejecting a candidate, sharing something similar to the below, as a bare minimum, is advisable.
Not only is it the right thing to do from a moral standpoint, but it’s essential for keeping candidates informed and ensuring you positively represent your business’s brand.
Candidate email rejection template – following application:
Dear <<Candidate First Name>>
Many thanks for expressing an interest in working for <<Your Company>> and for applying for our <<Job Title>> position.
We have been blown away by the response to our advert and the quality of candidates who have applied.
Whilst your background is interesting, we have chosen to progress with a small handful of candidates who are more closely aligned to our current needs.
Therefore, I’m afraid that we will not be progressing any further with your application. However, if anything changes, we will, of course, be in touch.
Thank you again for taking the time to explore a role with <<Company Name>>.
We wish you the best of luck with your job search.
Best wishes
<<Recruiter Name>> or <<Company Name>>
Candidate email update template – role on hold
Dear <<Candidate First Name>>
Many thanks for expressing an interest in working for <<Your Company>> and for applying for our <<Job Title>> position.
I am writing to let you know that we have temporarily put hiring for this role on hold due to unforeseen circumstances.
We do hope to resume this hiring process in the future and will therefore provide you with an update when we’re clear on the next steps.
In the meantime, we’d like to wish you well with your job search and thank you again for taking the time to explore a role with <<Company Name>>.
I do hope we’ll be in touch with more positive news soon.
Best wishes
<<Recruiter Name>> or <<Company Name>>
Candidate email update template – role no longer being recruited.
Dear <<Candidate First Name>>
Many thanks for expressing an interest in working for <<Your Company>> and for applying for our <<Job Title>> position.
I am writing to let you know that we have unfortunately taken the decision not to proceed with making this hire.
There have been a number of internal factors that have influenced this decision and whilst disappointing, I wanted to make you aware so you could consider alternative job opportunities.
If anything changes, we will of course be in touch.
Finally, we’d like to thank you again for taking the time to explore a role with <<Company Name>>.
Best of luck with your job search.
Best wishes
<<Recruiter Name>> or <<Company Name>>
Hopefully you’ll agree that the templates above, whilst generic, offer a sense of compassion and gratitude to candidates who have taken the time to apply for a job at your company.
Providing this level of feedback really isn’t too gruelling and will massively impact how candidates feel about their dealings with you as a prospective employer.
7. How do I assess HR candidates?
Assessing HR candidates can be a bit of a grey area – and a huge topic in its own right! So in this section we’ve focused on listing some key thoughts for you to mull over and consider (as opposed to trying to go into huge amounts of detail!).
Unlike other professions, the skills required to be an effective HR Leader can be a little ‘intangible’ and often quite subjective, depending on who’s doing the assessing.
For instance, an HR practitioner can excel in one environment and be deemed ‘great’ and then massively struggle in another environment and be labelled an ‘underachiever’.
It generally comes down to a candidate’s technical ability and experience, coupled with the right soft skills to excel in your environment, working in this specific role and with your leaders and teams.
What’s right for one business will not always be right for another. Therefore, having a clear understanding of the type of HR professional you’re looking for, before you start assessing, is crucial.
Put simply, how do you know what good looks like when you see it? Can you define key competencies that will ensure this hire is successful? And can you work out what a ‘good’ answer will look like?
The size of your business, how long it’s been trading, the internal structure and culture, whether it’s founder-led, pre-IPO, answerable to investors, backed by VC funding or in a period of decline, will all impact the type of HR professional suited to your environment.
Understanding this first is essential. You want to hire someone who will add to and enhance your culture, not detract from it.
So whilst it’s hard to specifically offer an HR assessment framework for all these scenarios, sometimes keeping it simple is a good place to start!
With that in mind here is a basic process you can take candidates through to assess against your criteria.
CV screening
Review the candidate’s resume and cover letter to get a sense of their experience, education, and qualifications. Look for relevant experience in the type of environment that you are offering and where possible look for evidence of success backed up by statistics. In numerical terms, what has this individual achieved?
Candidate qualification
Conduct a phone or video interview to screen candidates for basic qualifications and experience. This initial call will provide a good sense of suitability and can be used to cover some of the hygiene factors like salary expectations, desired work environment, reason for looking for a new role, eligibility to work in the UK etc.
Interviews
Conduct in-person or virtual interviews with the candidate to assess their cultural fit and interpersonal skills. You should already have identified the competencies required for the role, so make sure your questions allow you to assess against these areas. This interviewing phase will typically be held over several sittings and involve a number of internal stakeholders, depending on the seniority and complexity of the hire.
The final interview stages will also typically involve some kind of presentation where the candidate is tasked with presenting on a subject relating to the role they’re being considered for.
Assessment
Depending on the type of HR hire, you might choose to include an assessment element in your process. For instance, if you’re recruiting an HR or Reward Analyst then you might require them to undertake an Excel test to demonstrate their technical ability.
For more senior HR hires, like a Head of People, you might require candidates to complete a psychometric assessment like DISC or SHL profiling to help understand their professional style in more detail. We personally use a provider called BeTalent who provide a market leading psychometric insight into a candidate’s strengths and further aids the interview process with suggested questions.
Overall, assessing HR candidates requires a thorough and systematic approach that considers both technical skills and interpersonal qualities.
8. What kind of questions should I ask HR candidates during a job interview?
The types of questions you might ask an HR professional during an interview will vary depending on the type of HR role you’re hiring.
HR is made up of many different subsets including employee engagement, wellbeing, diversity and inclusion, employee relations, talent acquisition, learning and development, analytics, systems and operations, and reward. Alongside these you also have more ‘generalist’ HR positions (HR Business Partner, HR Consultant, HR Manager) where the focus of the role may be fairly broad.
Therefore, the types of questions you’re likely to ask will be different.
To keep it simple, we’ll take a look at some of the questions you might ask a candidate interviewing for a more generalist HR position, like an HR Manager:
- Tell me about your previous HR experience. What was your primary responsibility in that role?
- How do you ensure that HR policies and procedures are communicated and implemented effectively in the organisation?
- Can you describe a situation where you had to deal with a difficult employee situation? How did you handle it? Would you do anything differently?
- What is your approach to recruitment and selection? How do you ensure that the organisation attracts and hires the right candidates?
- How do you handle conflicts between employees or between employees and management?
- How do you stay up to date with HR laws and regulations?
- Tell me about a time when you had to handle a sensitive employee issue while maintaining confidentiality. How did you approach the situation?
- What is your experience with performance management? How do you help managers and employees improve performance?
- What is your approach to employee engagement and retention? How do you ensure that employees are satisfied with their jobs and motivated to perform well?
- Can you tell me about a time when you had to implement a new HR programme or initiative? What were the steps you took to ensure its success?
This is by no means an exhaustive list of all the questions you could ask an HR Manager but hopefully it gives you an idea of the areas you could focus on. However, your questions will obviously be dependent on what you’ve outlined in the Job Description as important for the role.
9. How should I structure my job interviews?
When hiring an HR professional, it’s likely that there will be at least two interview stages and more than one person involved in the process.
It’s therefore important for all stakeholders to understand the role they play within the process, and the areas they need to explore with the candidate. One person might be responsible for assessing cultural fit, whilst another might take a deeper dive into the candidate’s technical competencies.
From a candidate’s perspective, there’s nothing more frustrating than having to repeat their experience 3 or 4 times when meeting different stakeholders from the same business.
It demonstrates a lack of planning and organisation on the business’s part and would present an instant red-flag to a candidate.
So, how should you structure a standard job interview?
Start with an introduction
Begin by introducing yourself and your company. Give a brief overview of your company’s culture, values, and mission, and provide some context as to why you are hiring for this role.
You’ll also want to outline what the candidate can expect during the interview, how long the interview will last and what will happen at the end of the meeting.
Ask open-ended questions
Start the interview with open-ended questions to get a better understanding of the candidate’s current situation, experience and skills. Try to avoid answering the question for them and give them the freedom to talk.
Use behavioural questions
Behavioural questions (or competency questions) are designed to assess how a candidate has handled specific situations in the past. For example, you could ask the candidate to describe how they have resolved a conflict between two employees, or how they have dealt with a difficult termination. This will give you an insight into how they handle challenging situations and their problem-solving skills.
Assess their communication skills
Communication is a critical skill for an HR professional, as they are generally responsible for coaching your leadership team, mediating conflicts, and communicating policies and procedures to employees.
Evaluate cultural fit
Consider your company culture and values and ask the candidate questions that will help you assess whether they would be a good fit. This is generally quite a subjective area to assess and typically benefits from the input of several team members when deciding either way.
Allow time for questions
At the end of the interview, give the candidate an opportunity to ask questions. This will help you gauge their level of interest in the position and allow them to raise any concerns that they may have.
Reconfirm the role & opportunity
Don’t forget to ‘sell’ your role and company to the candidate! All too often in an interview scenario, employers forget the all-important balance between establishing if the interviewee is the right fit, and that it’s also imperative they also ensure they communicate the positive attributes of their role and company. Why would somebody want this role? Leave them wanting a next stage interview!
Convey next steps
Your candidates will want to know what happens following the interview, so make sure you communicate the next steps. Will you be considering other applicants? When can they expect to hear from you? Will there be another stage to the process? Being transparent with candidates is really important for building trust and managing expectations.
10. What happens if I can’t find the right person for my HR role?
Recruitment is part art, and part science. And yes, sometimes the ‘recruitment stars’ don’t align and you just can’t seem to find the right candidate, despite your best efforts.
When making a hire that’s proving challenging, it’s highly likely that you will need to compromise on one of the three areas listed below:
- Time
- Cost
- Quality
Time
Compromising on time means waiting a little longer for that super-star candidate to come along. If you have no budget to spend on additional recruitment activities and you’re not prepared to compromise on a candidate’s quality (e.g. their skills and experience) then you’ve got to be prepared to wait. If you’ve chosen to take the ‘DIY’ option, it may also mean that you need to commit more of your own time to get this over the line.
Cost
Compromising on cost and paying more to get to success means that you can put some additional money behind your recruitment efforts. This might involve sponsoring targeted adverts on LinkedIn, running a promotional campaign with a Job Board or reaching out to a recruitment agency (heaven forbid!). All of these additional approaches will cost more money but should ensure you are able to stick to your timelines and hire someone of the right calibre.
Quality
Compromising on quality means lowering your expectations around the profile of the person you are looking to recruit. It means changing your ‘must haves’ to ‘nice to haves’ and being a little more open-minded about the type of candidates you consider. Remember, different doesn’t necessarily mean worse or bad! For instance, could you hire someone at a more junior level and invest in upskilling them? This has the additional potential benefit of stronger longer-term loyalty from your hire for ‘taking a chance’ on them.
If you’ve tried compromising and you still can’t find the one, we would argue that you don’t have a clear understanding of the type of person you’re trying to recruit.
In this scenario, we would suggest that you invest some time in understanding what good looks like for your business before picking back up the search.
Confused? Not sure where to start? We can help lift the ‘recruitment fog’.
Complete the enquiry form below this article to arrange a free, no obligation, consultation.
11. How do I check that my candidates are eligible to work in the UK?
During the recruitment process, it’s important to check whether your candidates are eligible to work in the UK. It’s also essential that these checks are carried out before you offer a candidate a job.
Failing to carry out these checks and then employing someone without the right to work in the UK can result in severe penalties, including fines and in some cases, imprisonment.
The best time to complete these checks is at the start of the process during your initial screening conversations with candidates.
If you decide to progress a candidate to the formal interviewing stage, then you should ask them to provide evidence of their right to work in the UK.
Candidates can demonstrate their eligibility by showing you a physical copy of their UK passport, residence permit, or a valid visa during this interview stage.
These documents need to be checked for validity and then stored in a secure place that satisfies data protection legislation.
12. What data protection rules do I need to follow?
When hiring someone to join your business, you will process their (and other candidates being considered) personal data in a number of ways.
As an employer, you have a legal obligation to comply with data protection legislation, which includes the following:
Data Protection Act 2018
This is the main UK law that regulates the processing of personal data. It sets out the principles for data processing, the rights of data subjects, and the obligations of data controllers and processors.
General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR)
This is an EU-wide law that applies to all organisations that process personal data of EU citizens, regardless of their location. It sets out specific rules for the collection, use, storage, and sharing of personal data.
Privacy and Electronic Communications Regulations (PECR)
This law sets out rules for electronic marketing, including email marketing, text messaging, and telemarketing.
So how do you comply with the above data protection legislation when making a hire?
- Inform the candidate of how their personal data will be used and obtain their consent to process it.
- Collect only the personal data that is necessary for the recruitment process and keep it accurate and up to date. If you don’t need it anymore, delete it.
- Ensure that the personal data is stored securely, and not shared with third parties without the candidate’s consent.
- Respond to any requests from the candidate to access or correct their personal data, or to delete it after the recruitment process is completed.
- Provide the candidate with a privacy notice that explains how their personal data will be processed, and how they can exercise their rights under data protection legislation.
Failure to comply with data protection legislation can result in significant fines and reputational damage to your business. It’s therefore incredibly important that you give adequate attention to this part of the recruitment process.
13. How do I reference check my candidates?
Great news: you found someone awesome for your role and they have accepted your provisional* offer to join their business.
Before you get the party poppers out, it’s highly advisable that you take references on that candidate in advance of preparing a formal offer letter and sending out their employment contract.
There are three key reasons why it’s a good idea to take references:
Confirmation of Information
Reference checks can help confirm the accuracy of the information provided by the candidate during the hiring process. This includes verifying employment history / dates, educational qualifications, and other relevant details.
Assurance of Quality
Reference checks can also help to ensure that the candidate has the necessary skills, experience, and personal qualities to perform well in the job. This can give the employer confidence that they have made the right hiring decision.
Avoidance of Future Issues
Taking references can help to identify any potential issues or red flags that may have been missed during the hiring process.
* We say ‘provisional’ as it’s advisable to offer a candidate a job which is subject to them passing suitable reference and background checks.
So how do you actually go about getting these references?
Firstly, make sure that you have obtained the candidate’s permission to reach out to their referees and that they have supplied relevant contact details for you to do so.
Once you have the contact details, it’s advisable to speak to the referee over the phone to allow you to ask follow-up questions and gather more information.
However, not everyone will give up their time to speak over the phone and often a basic email is all you can expect to receive. In some cases, referees will give very limited information on a previous employee which might just simply be to confirm their employment, job title(s) and the specific dates they were with the business.
14. How can I ensure that after I’ve offered my candidate a job they start?
Often when a candidate has accepted an offer to join your business, you’ll have to wait for them to see out their notice with their current employer.
Notice periods typically range from between one to three months (sometimes 6 months for a senior hire), which can provide a lot of thinking time for a candidate.
It also provides a window of time whereby a candidate could be encouraged to accept a counteroffer from their current employer. Or for a candidate’s personal circumstances to change.
Unfortunately, the longer the time between a candidate accepting your job offer and them actually starting, the more likely it is that a scenario could arise that impacts whether or not they join your business. Now we’re not saying that this is common practice, but it can and does happen.
Ultimately, you can’t control whether they receive a counteroffer.
You can’t control changes to their personal circumstances during this time.
So what can you control and influence?
The answer to this is that you can control how a candidate feels and continues to feel about joining your business.
Stay close to them. Keep in touch regularly. Meet up face-to-face (where possible). Get them thinking about their own plans and aspirations for their new role. Encourage multiple team members to make contact with them. Let them know how excited you are for them to join your business. Invite them to company town halls or conferences. Include them on your company newsletter mailing list.
In recruitment terms, you keep them warm.
Also, make sure you’re proactive with drawing up their employment contract and ensuring that the legal side of things are taken care of right at the start. It really goes a long way to demonstrating how much you value them, their time, and how thrilled you are that they will be joining your team.
Finally, if there’s internal systems you can give them access to in advance from an onboarding, integration, and training perspective, then do it! Day 1 onboarding is a whole separate (and VERY important) topic that we don’t cover here.
But suffice to say, leaving your new employee without a laptop, access pass and proper induction on their first day is just not going to cut it. And this will be a sure-fire way to increase the chances of going back to square one in the Recruitment game of snakes & ladders (only much more serious and expensive.)
Final thoughts
We hope that this guide has helped outline the key areas that you should be considering when hiring an HR professional yourself.
There’s a lot in here so it’s totally understandable if you’re feeling overwhelmed by the task ahead. If this is the case and you’d like to seek our advice on any of the areas we’ve covered, then we’re very happy to help.
Please reach out to us via the contact form below and we’ll arrange a free consultation to discuss what you can do to make your HR recruitment process a successful one.
Get in Touch with PEEQ HR Recruitment
We are here to help you. If you have any questions, queries or would like to discuss a potential hire, a job application, or require clarification on anything detailed on our website, then we would love to hear from you.
Please feel free to call, email or complete the form provided and we will assist you.
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PEEQ HR Recruitment Agency
PEEQ HR Recruitment agency is a specialist HR recruiter in London, HR recruiter, HR recruitment agency, HR agency and HR agency London are other ways of describing them. Human Resources Recruiter and human resources recruiter London are also human resources recruitment and human resources recruitment strategies. A HR recruitment consultant and HR recruiter specialist are also a HR recruit agency and a HR recruit agency London. PEEQ specialise in HR permanent hires and HR contract hires and are a specialist HR recruitment agency London who work with Web Agency UK. PEEQ HR Recruitment agency is a specialist HR recruiter in London, HR recruiter, HR recruitment agency, HR agency and HR agency London are other ways of describing them. Human Resources Recruiter and human resources recruiter London are also human resources recruitment and human resources recruitment strategies. A HR recruitment consultant and HR recruiter specialist are also a HR recruit agency and a HR recruit agency London. PEEQ specialise in HR permanent hires and HR contract hires and are a specialist HR recruitment agency London who work with Web Agency UK.
