I have attended many business meetings, and I always hear the facilitators or convener lament how hard and difficult it is to hire the right talent to help maximize business profitability.
Yes, I agree we are experiencing a talent drain in Africa as a whole because many of our talented professionals are moving abroad for greener pastures. However, whenever challenges present themselves, opportunities and solutions will follow.
Many small and medium businesses have employed workers based on who they know, they have employed relatives, friends of the family etcetera but have realized too late that an individual being idle is not the ideal employer to run a business or help a business grow.
The Science Behind Recruitment
As a recruiter we put a lot of effort in sourcing for the ideal talents, we review resumes, we make use of technology to shortlist the application, we screen candidates, interview and check references to ensure we attract, hire and retain the top talents for businesses.
Sourcing
This is a skilled set to search and attract the right candidates-based on the criteria and key performance indicators set by business owners to ensure that the right candidate meets the business needs set by the organisations.
Interviews
These are conducted by professionals looking out for certain competencies that a candidate needs to posses to ensure their success in the new role or positions. Past behaviors are the best indicators to determine the candidates will succeed or fail on the job, hence we ask scenario-based questions to ascertain if they are the right fit for the job.
Negotiation
This is the bargaining processes to ensure that the ideal candidate agrees to the enumeration that business owner as set aside to be paid in exchange for services. Whether we like to admit it, people are motivated to work in order to get paid to give themselves a comfortable life at most.
Every employee will have a figure they would love to earn but the determinant factors is usually the value they offer on the job, the salary commensurate to their value, the industry remunerations, it could be a close pay range, higher or lower depending on what the business has set as it budget of the role.
Conclusion
The primary goal of putting candidates through the recruitment process or hiring process is to ensure they have the right competencies and they are culturally fit for the positions. The candidates are interviewed using competency-based interviews, usually assessing how they will perform on the job, we are asking real life based scenarios of past experiences on how they have been able to use their initiatives to meet goals and objectives set by employers.
To ensure they have the required skill, knowledge and attributes to get the work done to avoid loss of revenue for the business.
I would say it is always best to let recruiters do their jobs, while business owners are allowed to state their preferences, qualities and specifications of the type of employees they want to work in their business. At the end of the day, it is a win-win situation for all the parties involved in this process, the recruiter, candidates and business owners.
