ABOUT US WORK FOR US BLOG CONTACT US LOGIN BLOG The Top 5 Ways for Facilities and Maintenance Managers to Prevent Hiring Frustrations Nov 25, 2019 Hiring Tips If you're a Contracts or Operations Manager working in the Facilities Management, Building Services Maintenance or Soft Services Industries, and you often find yourself frustrated and stressed out when hiring new staff - this is the blog for you. Joanne Crampton, Head of Thorn Baker Estates, Facilities & Maintenance 1, Create a timescale by working backwards from the ideal start date. So you need a Commercial Gas Maintenance Engineer in place for a new contract starting on 2nd December - work backwards from that date: One week for onboarding before contract start = ideal start date of 25th November. Taking into account four weeks’ notice (standard for a good Engineer with excellent work history already working elsewhere) means you’ll need to have an offer in writing to them by no later than 28th October. Two weeks to complete 1st and 2nd stage interviews will mean booking out time for the first round of interviews week commencing 14th October. You want a selection of candidates to see on the days you’ve planned for interviews? You’ll need a week of advertising (or better still, a week for your specialist recruitment agency to find candidates ready for interview on your chosen dates) – so that means having your job spec and ideal profile ready by 7th October. Working back from the ideal start date gives you and your recruitment partners a realistic and sensible timeframe to work to. 2, Get organised. This goes hand in hand with the above – if you want to hire someone for your team you’re going to need to plan time out of your normal workday for advert writing, CV reading and interviews. Don’t try to just cram it in around your workload – this will only lead to frustration and stress. The most important thing is making sure that you have dates earmarked for interviews – great candidates can form a bad impression of a company very quickly if you can’t put aside time with a reasonable amount of notice for an interview. You can read more about candidates biggest bugbears in this great article from Glassdoor here 3, Make sure you know what you are looking for. This might sound like a no-brainer but in reality, a lot of Hiring Managers start the process without having a clear idea of exactly what they're looking for – leaving them upset when the wrong type of candidates start flowing into their inbox. You need to be able to articulate very clearly (either on an advert, to your internal recruitment team or your agency partner) what specifically you're looking for. Make sure you cover qualifications, skills, experience and personality otherwise you will soon find yourself frustrated at the amount of time you are wasting interviewing the “wrong” candidates. Ask us about our TalentMatch system and how we can help you figure out what you’re looking for – or just fill in our enquiry form here. 4, Set service levels for each stage of the hiring process. We work in an industry where service level agreements, procedures and deadlines determine what we do every day and in what order. So why should your recruitment process be any different? Agree with your internal recruitment team, your specialist agencies and most importantly yourself what service levels you will work too. For example: 24 hours to respond to a CV/application. Three business days to arrange an interview. one week to get an offer of employment out. Whichever part of the process you are at you should have a relevant service level, which has been agreed and communicated to everyone involved. This will prevent frustrations with the expectations set for yourself, your internal and external recruitment team, and most crucially - your candidates. Give us a call on 08444 060086 to talk to one of our specialists about our Proven Process and how agreeing service levels with our clients helps to reduce their hiring frustrations. 5, Enjoy it! A lot of people view recruitment as a necessary chore rather than a positive opportunity to strengthen their team. A lot of the time you’re forced to hire someone new because one of your team has left or had to be let go - it’s time-consuming and in the current climate, from the skills shortage to Brexit to worry about, it’s also very hard work! With the right positive attitude, recruiting a new member of staff can be a brilliant experience. You’ll meet new and interesting people, gain valuable market knowledge from your recruitment partners, have the opportunity to forge great working relationships with internal recruitment staff AND find someone who can actually make your working life easier in the future. What’s not to love? 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