Hiring Best Practices To Attract The Top Talent

Having limited resources doesn’t mean you can’t come up with creative ways to attract the best talent at your business – something Yasmin Lord-Pottinger has learnt since joining as Senior People and Talent Partner at CharlieHR.

In fact, it’s better to stop focusing on the financial means you don’t have, and double down on the experience you can give new hires now.

In this blog, we sit down with Yasmin, to explore her 5 best hiring practices that helped build a high-performing team at CharlieHR. 

1. Give clear expectations to potential new hires

This might be stating the obvious, but from when candidates are invited to the first stage of the selection process (a telephone stage), we make sure all the information is laid out for them. 

That includes:

• A hiring deck sent to their email address where we outline the recruitment process from start to finish, as well as a rough guide on timelines
• FAQs to understand what to expect and how they can best prepare
• Information about who they will be meeting
• An advance notice if they’re expected to complete a task 
  
  This gives candidates full transparency on what to expect when they apply at Charlie – that’s, of course, on top of our thorough job description, which includes a salary band (I’ll come back on this later).

2. Include Diversity, Equity & Inclusion right from the start

To enhance our DE&I strategy, we want to make sure we don’t leave any details behind, and that starts with our recruitment process. Here are the first steps we take to include diversity and inclusion at the beginning of the candidate’s journey and throughout their time at Charlie. 

We anonymise CV’s which means we don’t see any personal details such as names, dates of birth or demographic information – we simply have access to the candidate’s professional achievements. 

In my role, I make sure I have a weekly hiring sync with hiring managers where, among other things, we assess the diversity of their candidate pool to ensure we are building a pipeline that aligns as closely as possible with our target representation.

This requires commitment and intentionality. If, despite our best efforts (including leveraging networks and sourcing strategies), we encounter challenges in building a perfectly representative candidate pipeline, that's okay too. These metrics serve as a guide, and the emphasis is on genuine consideration and thoughtful navigation throughout the process.

Our hiring panel is also composed of a diverse representation from people across the organisation, which is crucial to ensure a fair and unbiased hiring process. It also helps create a space for potential new hires to express themselves more freely if they feel represented in the hiring panel. 

3. Our High Performance Behaviours lead the way

You may wonder what I mean by High Performance Behaviours – they are a set of values we live by at Charlie. They’re a great way to make sure our new hires live up to our standards and are a good culture add. 

Perhaps it would be a good idea for you to set these ones as well, especially if you want a set of values to measure your candidates against. Below, I’ll give you a better understanding of what our High Performance Behaviours concretely mean: 

• Get uncomfortable: we would love to see candidates who are not afraid to engage with the hiring team regardless of the topic. 
• Give energy: this can look like suggesting solutions, noticing any potential problems in our product or even having an outlook of positivity when faced with challenges. 
• Drive for results: we’re looking for people who don’t give up on the first try, and who will not be satisfied until they reach their goals.
• Be humble: being open-minded, responsive to feedback and taking responsibility when falling short of expectations. 

4. Display salary bands for transparency 

We did make Otta’s salaries’ transparency list last year, because we always share salaries in our job listings. 

Salary transparency allows us more room to match a candidate against their level, but we’ve also made sure we:

• Display salary bands prominently in all job advertisements to provide candidates with clear expectations when it comes to compensation
• Ensure a more targeted hiring process as people won’t apply if they’re not happy with our offering
• We also adhere to a strict non-negotiable policy when it comes to salaries. It’s a great way to maintain fairness and be in accordance with our DE&I values, as well as aligning with our career progression framework at all times. 

5. Round it up with a great onboarding experience

Many people talk about hiring, but once you’ve hired someone, the job is far from over – you need to make sure they get the best onboarding experience to keep them aboard. 

That’s why I think it’s essential to have a few crucial elements within your onboarding process. At Charlie, we provide: 

• An onboarding flow through our very own HR software to make it easy and efficient – this allows you to collect employee details, documents and give them the information they need without having to go through a lengthy manual process  
• Clear objectives and KPIs for the new hire’s first three months of probation – you will need hiring managers to set these before the new hire joins and depending on the role they’ve hired for.
• An experience tailored to each new hire – although there are common factors to each onboarding session, there will be aspects (such as training) that are completely bespoke and will be done at a different pace for each individual
• Transparency about their performance to make sure we align with our hiring values – don’t hide if someone is not performing well, act on it early on so you can improve it. But also don’t be shy of giving someone compliments, it’ll motivate them even more. 

Why are hiring practices so important then?

For us, hiring practices are about: 
- Prioritising inclusion and diversity to cultivate a team where every individual can thrive
- Aiming for a high-performing culture right from the start by giving candidates all the tools they need to succeed
- Give as much transparency as possible to everyone at Charlie to foster a culture of trust and retention 

Ultimately, our commitment to inclusive hiring practices is integral to building a diverse, high-performing team at Charlie. And perhaps by trying to put such practices into place, you’ll see more of the talent you want in the room with you. 

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