HR Lounge

Expertise for experts

HRM is constantly developing. Our field is part of an industry that is getting more complex every day, and we’re facing new technological challenges and a constant change of external factors on a regular basis: lack of specialists, decrease in employees’ willingness to move away for a job, rising expectations for “good” employers, careers getting split up into specialist fields, just to name a few. On top of that every company has their own corporate culture and their individual HR strategy.
It’s not enough anymore to just present our clients with candidates ‘off the rack’. We’re facing new challenges more and more often that require new ideas and a lot of mental flexibility.
Our industry’s ability for innovation relies heavily on an exchange of knowledge and experience and on networking.
This HR Lounge provides a platform for recruiters, HRM and executives where they will find current topics, ideas, trends and other information on recruiting and related questions.
We’re in the process of developing accompanying services and lectures alongside this online information platform where personal discourse and exchange is possible as well.

People approaching one another.

Searching for specialists

Finding the right candidates

In theory, every business is able to find new candidates to fill vacant positions. But the competition has gotten tougher and in the end only those with a thorough and creative recruiting strategy will be able to welcome the best matches on board.

We have listed a number of factors and suggestions for you:

  • Do you discuss your target audience with the respective departments beforehand?
  • Are you using all available recruiting resources? Are you conducting strategic and permanent active sourcing? Are you in touch with regional high schools and universities?
  • Do your employees identify with your company and you as an employer and actively help in filling vacancies? If not, what could you do to motivate them to get involved?
  • Is the position’s salary attractive and up to date? Are your salary benchmarks in general up to date? If there is not a lot of leeway when it comes to salaries – are there efforts to present other incentives like benefits, flexible working hours etc.?
  • How is the general atmosphere? Employees function as a company’s representatives – is the atmosphere among yours a satisfied one?
  • Are you setting an example for your corporate culture? Do you keep a positive corporate culture in mind when defining your search process? Are communication and decision making transparent and target-oriented?
  • What kind of leeway and what potential for development are you offering? Are you offering training programs?
  • What about your company’s long-term development? Can a future employee count on job security?

Interviews

Target-oriented questioning

Interviewing potential candidates in an efficient and target-oriented manner is an art form. The person doing the interview only has a limited time during which they have to analyze and evaluate an applicant’s personality and their professional skills – while at the same time advertising the vacant position and the company itself.
The evaluation at the end is always influenced by the recruiter’s subjective opinion and impressions.
That’s why target orientation, keeping a personal distance and the right tools to objectively compare candidates with each other are very important.

When preparing for an interview certain standards should be laid down from the get go. First, there’s defining the individual job requirements for each vacancy. Then the interviews are conducted using the same structure with each candidate. And finally, they have to be carefully documented.

Comparing the job requirement overview with the candidate’s CV defines what kind of questions have to be asked to make sure that the applicant is a good match.

These questions revolve around the following points:

  • professional qualification
  • personal qualification, credibility of the CV
  • conditions at the job
  • motivation behind wanting to change jobs

People sometimes underestimate that the person interviewing the applicant also represents their company. An engaging, forthcoming demeanor (even though some questions have to be tough, of course) and obvious knowledge about the topic at hand creates a positive company image for the applicant, even if they end up not being recruited.

Marked interview appointment in a calendar.

digitization

Social recruiting – a dynamic process

Today’s job hunt happens online. Newspaper ads have been more or less replaced by online job markets and message boards, and social recruiting is gaining more traction. Presenting oneself, searching for applicants, contacting them and even so-called one-click applications all happen on Xing/kununu or LinkedIn. Job market pages like Stepstone, Monster, Experteer and industry-specific message boards are also in high demand and being used frequently.
The same goes for social media channels: active sourcing happens more and more through YouTube, Twitter, WhatsApp or Facebook.
Furthermore, the shifting of recruiting and application process into the online world creates an internationalization within the pool of candidates. That is why companies should check their current recruiting strategy to see whether or not, and if so – how, they can extend their recruiting fields to the international stage.
So-called ‘robot recruiting’ takes digitization one step further: artificial intelligence, algorithms that generate and analyze online profiles of potential candidates, and tools like chat bots that contact them all make managing the candidates easier. There are advantages and disadvantages to that. On the one hand side there’s a high number of potential candidates available. On the other hand, most of them expect to be approached by a competent contact person, not by a bot.