We are always aiming at getting the best talent for our organizations. For years we have seen different organizations in the industry struggle to do so. And this is mostly due to bad recruitment practices and poorly designed recruitment processes. So, today we want to walk you through how you can design an effective recruitment and selection process in the Aquaculture industry.
It is not a secret that businesses had to cut their budget during the pandemic. However, as the markets are opening again, they find themselves in a position in which they either need to provide more specialization to current employers or they need to hire new talent. Hiring can be expensive, especially if it's not done properly! And our experience in recruitment in the industry has shown us, that sometimes companies find out a little too late that their recruitment and selection processes are faulty. Sometimes, the hiring manager sticks to outdated interview processes resulting in bad hires. At WeAreAquaculture we ensure you it is possible to design a recruitment and selection process that will give you a complete scope on candidates. Their aptitudes and skills, as well as their organizational cultural fit. Having these will guarantee you are making the right decision, whilst saving you time and money.
The first thing you need to have in place is proper sourcing methods. We live in a time where we can have a wide range of channels by which we can find candidates. Traditional job boards, professional networks, Industry events, Social Media, Referrals, Career pages. However, it is easy for good talent to find down the cracks if we don't have a consistent and organized way to parse them. In order to develop strong sourcing in our organization, we need to make sure we have a place to gather all candidates from all sources in just one place, and for this to be an automated process.
Strong sources are those by which with the experience we learn are suitable for each position and industry. Not all fit candidates for every position will come from the same sources. And not every position will have entries in every source. We need to make sure we know our business, our industry, and each specific position, in order to start offering platforms for our candidates to come through.
Nobody likes being in the dark. The first step to having a transparent recruitment process is having strong consolidated sourcing practices. The second thing is providing feedback to all candidates. Yes, it may be time consuming, but it is 2022, and most ATS let you automate a big part of the communications you usually have with your candidates. Hearing back from you will keep candidates interested and engaged with the process.
Millennials and Gen Zs are very familiar with the concept of ghosting. And just because they are familiar, doesn't mean they will get used to it. If you sent a message -even if it's automated- within the following 2 days of their application, they will not lose interest. we talked about the Candidate experience a while ago.
Hiring, recruitment and selection processes have a lot of thought and planning behind them. But we need to learn to be flexible when it comes to talent. Sometimes we base and create a job description on a previous employee's profile. But we need to remember no teardrops are alike. Everyone in the aquaculture industry may come from different backgrounds and earn different skills throughout their experience, this is why we need to be flexible when parsing our candidates.
And always leave room for change. We can design a selection process that is based on X number of interviews, and Y sets of tests for skills and cultural fit. However, every human process needs to constantly evolve based on our past experiences and expectations. We need to be able to design a process that is flexible enough to build the path before us in a way in which we adapt to our own circumstances and the talent market. In a future post, we will be talking further about Designing your Recruitment Process in Aquaculture.