Top tips to improve your recruitment processes

Manpower constraints remain a big challenge for close to 49% of organisations in Malaysia, with many struggling to find and retain new hires within their company. With the frustration from lengthy hiring processes, and lack of culture fit and job satisfaction, 84% of Malaysian jobseekers are willing to leave Malaysia to seek job opportunities overseas for reasons such as better career prospects and fulfilment (based on a study by Hays). Hence, the refinement of the recruitment processes and attraction of talented candidates are a few of the biggest obstacles companies in Malaysia face.

Although about half of the companies are still satisfied with the talents they have to achieve current business objectives, companies can continue to improve their visibility to stand out against their competitors, engage the best talent, as well as stagger the financial burden of recruiting fresh staff. Here are some top tips on how you can improve your recruitment process:

1. Partner with a trusted recruitment firm

With job-hopping becoming a common phenomenon, companies have to juggle sourcing new talents while retaining existing ones, on top of maintaining day-to-day operations. And it’s not uncommon to see employees doubling-up as Human Resource managers, particularly in start-ups where both resources and funding are limited. Recruitment firms like Randstad understand the pressure of growing a company fast and work closely with SMEs to help identify their resourcing needs and scale quickly. VTalentx also tailors its services for these smaller companies, and provides specialised recruitment and consultancy services.

2. Improve your job description by cutting to the chase

Currently, hiring managers tend to overwhelm candidates with long descriptions and countless details on their listing. This is counterproductive when most people have an attention span of 15 seconds or less when it comes to reading online. Instead, work to define the company’s unique value proposition and give candidates compelling reasons to apply. Focus on the learnings that your company can provide for the candidate, and outline the most important skill set needed for the job, and you’ll attract the best talent your way.

3. Embrace social media

Having a voice on a digital platform is crucial to the recruiting process for two reasons. Firstly, 52 percent of job seekers in Malaysia follow companies on social media to learn about jobs. Thus, being on social media increases your company’s overall visibility. Secondly, it exemplifies the company’s digitally-enabled culture, and some of the best candidates are tech natives who would be on a lookout for companies that are forward-looking and receptive to new technology.

4. Test your candidate’s commitment

After overcoming the hurdle of sourcing for candidates, hiring managers then face another common challenge – uncommitted job candidates who show interest and manage to say all the right things, but withdraw their application due to a myriad of reasons. To weed these time-wasters out early, commitment questions will help you draw more insights into a candidate’s fit for the role and company by delving into specifics of the role.

A commitment question would sound like: “So, what aspects of the role do you think you’ll like? And which will you dislike?”

A candidate’s answer will shed more light on how they will actually enjoy the role and their knowledge about the demands of the job. Ideally a candidate would be excited about the main aspects of the job, but if they say otherwise, chances are they might have issues moving forward.

5. Encourage them to interview you, too

An interview process should be a two-way street. By encouraging candidates to interview you, it inadvertently shows their level of interest, preparation and how closely they have been paying attention. This also provides candidates with the fair opportunity to air any concerns they might have and do a chemistry-check as well.

6. Spread the financial burden of a big hiring spree

Small, fast growing companies will often recruit a raft of talent in one go as they secure funding and expand. This can put significant pressure on a company’s balance sheet and create short term cash flow issues. However by using a credit card via CardUp to pay the recruitment firms’ fees, companies can extend their payment terms and stagger the heavy cost of hiring new staff. Companies can also charge employees salaries to their credit card through CardUp, leveraging under-utilised credit card limits to pay employees on time, while enjoying interest-free credit of up to almost 2 months.

7. Test their skills

Getting candidates to work on test cases might be an additional round added to the hiring process, however, it is a worthy trade off. Candidates get to demonstrate the skills and knowledge they claim to possess, and hiring managers get to see how they perform and assess how much they will be able to value-add to the company. Test cases also help hiring managers get a sense of the candidates’ thought processes, and how they can add different perspectives to the team.

8. Retain talent

A hiring managers’ job doesn’t stop with sourcing and hiring selected candidates out of the talent pool. For those working at start-ups with limited resources and manpower, putting in place a framework to retain top talent can be time-consuming and challenging.

Consider using tools such as Talenox, a payroll, leave and workforce management software which ensures that staff are well managed and remunerated on time. These self-serve tools allow your hiring manager more time to focus on growth and retention while providing clarity and accessibility to your staff on their leave and payroll, giving them more control and satisfaction. 

Ultimately, the search for good talent never ends, but with the right processes in place, it will be a much smoother, more productive and hassle-free endeavour!