Client Tips

Selling your job to candidates can secure you the best candidate on the market more easily and often at a lower salary. There are 4 basic factors that are easiest to sell:

1. Opportunity to move into Management; if this is on the agenda then make it as specific as possible, "You will be running a team of X people by X month" 
2. Opportunity to gain new technology; people know that you have to be moving forward with technology. If they are going to learn specific skills, make it very clear what and when. Write down what they will be using in the first 12 months and compare it to what they have.
3. Opportunity to change role; if they are going to be doing any different aspect of the project then that will give them exposure to a new role.
4. Opportunity to work on tangibly different projects; this could be a new business vertical, a bigger / smaller project or a different application.

All of these factors improve the candidates' employability because they are tangible facts that will end up on the CV. By detailing these factors and explaining very clearly at interview what they will gain, you will be able to attract the best candidates.

This is the process of interviewing people based on the skills needed for the new role, rather than talking about the jobs the candidate has had. The interviewer focuses on the skills on the job spec; one by one the interviewer goes through them looking for clarification on the depth of experience the candidate has.

To make this technique work you need the skills listed on a piece of paper and you put a score out of 10 next to each skill. This interview technique very quickly eliminates the wafflers and the people with padded CVs. The surprising part is that you will find yourself asking the same question over and over for the poorly skilled candidates and only once for the most relevant people. This is a far more valuable, useful and usable interviewing technique than you might imagine, it is really worth a try.

Simply give your recruiter 3 interview slots and say that you trust their judgement to find the best people available in the market. You are transferring all the stress of CV reading, screening and arranging interviews to your recruiter; they will find you the best people for the job, because you have given them a great chance of filling a role. You need to agree a job spec and this only works where there is a reasonable supply of candidates. As a recruiter with a 20 year track record, this makes me work hardest.

Should you pay a high base salary or have a great bonus scheme? When candidates compare job offers, a high basic salary is always more attractive than any bonus. But if the bonus scheme can be explained clearly and there is a track record of paying it, it can dramatically impact the candidate’s view on a job offer.

However, an interesting study out of Cornell found that a 1% raise boosts job performance by 2%. But the study also found that if you give your employees the same amount of money in the form of a bonus, their job performance jumps up an amazing 2%. A word of caution; the study only examined one company with 700 employees.

Research says that bonuses work best if they are paid often; the longer the period in between, the less effective they are. Plus people will work for the bonus - not necessarily working smart or hard - so be careful what you are rewarding. Significantly, an open bonus scheme that encourages competition and involves regular updates increases productivity.