​​Having a structured recruitment process in place helps filter out unsuitable candidates before they’ve taken up much of your time.

​We’ve just become proud owners of a new car. Well new to us. Nothing fancy, but it gets us from A to B nicely and comfortably. It’s a lovely upgrade from our previous 15 year old, faithful family car. That, had electric windows that didn’t go back up, a sat nav that had a very annoying beep that didn’t turn off and a music system that only did radio.

​I was having a conversation with someone yesterday who has a job interview next week. He was doing a lot of the talking and was, in my opinion, scarily verbose.  I was thinking to myself, what a challenging interview his would be to conduct and am hoping that his interviewer is well trained and experienced in controlling and keeping interviews to time. Otherwise this interview is going to be a record breaker!

One in three UK firms expect to cut jobs by autumn (The Guardian)

If you are expecting to make redundancies in the next few months, one of the kindest things you could do is to provide those you have to sadly let go, with the skills and confidence to seek a new job. 

Many of your staff won’t have had an interview for years and will feel terrified by the prospect of putting themselves out there in such a competitive job market. ​

I was recently asked this brilliant question by Elliott King, founder of MintTwist, digital marketing agency based in London. 

“It takes a long time to ‘triage’ applicants and to first interview candidates. What do you recommend we do to speed up and improve the quality of the process to save costs and improve the quality of 2nd interviewees?”

Such a relevant question for business owners wanting to grow their teams in the current market and for the foreseeable future. 

Ingenuity, creativity, a willingness to learn, innovate and adapt. These are the traits of an agile business. They are trying new things and embracing new technology in order to continue to connect and engage with their customers. How better to stand out from the crowd and attract new clients? 

Business owners are dealing with unprecedented challenges to their operations and those who demonstrate these attributes will weather the storm and emerge stronger and fitter. 

​If you need carrots for a recipe and put them on your shopping list, as long as you pay attention to your scribbles, you’ll come home with carrots.  Simple. 

If you’re recruiting for a new employee and you put on your shopping list (person specification), good time management, communication skills, good attention to detail, numerical skills, technical skills and learning agility, can you be sure you’ll get these?