It’s said that a company is only as good as its employees. Finding the talented employees and top performers that will hopefully take the company to the next level is a top priority for growing companies like ours. But, finding that All Star team member or leader doesn’t just happen. So, what’s your formal recruiting and hiring strategy? Here are a few tips and best practices we follow.

It starts with a job description

This is one of the most important steps in the recruiting process, as it determines both who applies and what types of people are targeted. Meet with the hiring manager to make a list of tasks the person will be responsible for. Find out what characteristics and skill sets are highest priority. Do they need specialized training? How important are analytical skills? Learn enough so you can accurately portray the position.

Post the position strategically

You can always rely on the big job boards like CareerBuilder.com and Monster.com, but you can also get more strategic and post on niche sites. Creativehotlist.com, for example, is a great place to post jobs for designers. When reviewing niche sites for posting, consider the size of the audience (visitors). While you want to get your job posting out there as much as possible, there is a point of diminishing returns. Make sure you post it on your company’s own pages (website, Facebook, etc).

Referrals, source, and network

Now that the position is posted, reach out to current employees, friends, family, and online networks to ask for referrals. Referrals are huge and have been proven to be our number one source for talent (over 70% of our employees are referrals). Truthfully, you need to first create an excellent culture and work environment to create happy employees before they’ll recruit their friends, but that’s a whole other post…

We have a unique referral program that pays ANYONE to refer us candidates. Why limit the referral program to just employees? Your vendors and business contacts who know you well can be a great source for referrals. Rates range based on the urgency of the position and the job level, but ours typically range between $250 and $500 per referral.

Outside of referrals, we proactively source top talent who may not come across our job posting, for various reasons. We do the typical career fairs, universities, networking events, LinkedIn, CareerBuilder, social media, etc.

LinkedIn in particular has become a very effective recruitment tool. It is a snap to search by keywords, title, industry, location, size of company and many other searchable criteria. Also, the “groups” feature on LinkedIn is extremely beneficial to network and get to know people in a certain industry. If you are not on LinkedIn yet, you need to be.

Interviewing and assessing the talent

There really is no ONE right way to interview and assess talent. However, there are certainly things we try to do to increase the chances of finding great people. Our interview process relies heavily on questions that assess culture-fit in addition to technical skill set.

We’re very open and honest about the realities of working here, and we believe that culture fit is equally as important as skill set.

We have a list of attributes we’ve identified that make up a true CLEARLINKer, and we design interview questions that identify these attributes in candidates.

Outside of the interview, we use a candidate assessment tool called the Predictive Index, which assesses certain behavioral traits to see how they align with the demands of both the specific job and our overall company culture.

Another process we’ve found effective is having the candidate complete a test project as part of the interview. There is no better way to weed out a candidate than to actually work with them on a small project. Test projects allow you to assess their skills and how they’ll fit into your team. Some roles are a better fit for test projects than others.

We also run a background check to make sure there isn’t anything in the candidate’s history that might be concerning.

Don’t Forget Onboarding

Recruiting doesn’t stop after you’ve got an accepted job offer on the table. Equally important is helping the new candidate integrate with your team. In addition to sending a welcome email stocked with random information (where’s the closest place to get lunch, and what should I wear on my first day?? for example), we have a program called CLEARLINK Clusters that connects new hires with a handful of people to help them navigate the company during their first few weeks.

Our recruiting and hiring strategies continue to evolve (right now we’re testing a proprietary Q&A process developed in-house to make our sales hiring process even more scientific). The key is to write it down, be flexible to make improvements, and be sure to measure the effectiveness.

• It’s said that a company is only as good as its employees. Finding the talented employees and top performers that will hopefully take the company to the next level is a top priority for growing companies like ours. But, finding that All Star team member or leader doesn’t just happen. So, what’s your formal recruiting and hiring strategy? Here are a few tips and best practices we follow.