Keeping the Ball Rolling: the Importance of Momentum in the Recruitment Process
When hiring for your IP department, you might feel that recruitment is a relatively passive process; something that can run in the background of your daily work. However, if you want to find exceptional candidates in an industry as small and competitive as IP, proactivity is vital. Of course, hiring must also be a careful and considered process, often requiring multiple stages – but our expertise in recruitment within the IP space has taught us the importance of maintaining momentum.
Here, we detail the dangers of running out of steam when hiring IP professionals, and how this can be avoided – particularly using the help of a specialist recruiter, like MWA.
First Impressions are Vital
Never forget that as you are interviewing candidates, they are also interviewing you. Within such a small industry, outstanding professionals are usually passive candidates. If you want these quality candidates to join your team, then they also need to be impressed. A lack of communication and long waiting times are just a few things that instill a negative impression of your company with top candidates.
The advantage of using a dedicated recruiter, such as MWA, is that clear candidate communication is one of our top priorities. We keep in touch with candidates so that you don’t have to; there is no danger of forgetting to send a candidate an update and stoking frustration.
Offers from competitors
The longer you leave a candidate waiting – be it for feedback, the next stage of an interview or awaiting an offer – then the more time you are giving them to look for alternative opportunities or speak with their current employer. It is all too common to see exceptional candidates removing themselves from consideration because of the time they have spent waiting for a second or third interview – during which they have interviewed for and been offered another job. Unfortunately, candidates cannot wait forever just for the possibility of an offer. Prioritising the hiring process within your organization is crucial if you don’t want your top candidates to be snapped up by your competitors.
An advantage of using a headhunter such as MWA is our high-contact approach. We enjoy building genuine relationships with the candidates we support. This helps to keep us aware of any alternative processes they may be involved in. As a result, we can anticipate when a candidate might receive another offer and advise our client to speed up the process.
Attrition of Candidates
In simple terms, an exceptional candidate is not going to wait around through a drawn-out hiring process. It is all too common to see candidates simply withdraw themselves from consideration if they feel things are taking too long. If you lose the momentum of your process, you are losing out on IP professionals who have the potential to be invaluable to your company.
Using a specialist recruiter presents an advantage for you to have a helping supportive external contact. The benefit of this is that we spend our time building relationships that are based on trust with both candidates and employers, so we can listen and communicate any frustrations throughout a process. This helps to avoid smaller challenges developing into impassable issues.
While using a specialized recruiter will undoubtedly speed up your recruitment process, there are also internal steps you can take to keep the ball rolling. In particular, it is important to go into recruiting with a defined process in mind. Before advertising a new job, consider some questions; what should the interview process look like? How long should the maximum time between interviews be? Who, in your company, is essential in signing off before you send a candidate an offer? If you can follow an agreed structure, you can avoid issues further on down the line.
If you are beginning to look for a new IP hire, we encourage you to consider these points and think; are the existing hiring processes at your organisation sufficient to keep things running smoothly? If these processes are out of your hands, then take it upon yourself to build efficient communication into the hiring process. If you are unsure, or feel your recruitment might need further support, organize a free conversation with one of our dedicated consultants here at MWA.
