What do candidates want?

Many companies are assessing their hiring requirements and looking to grow their workforce. Whilst this is great news for candidates seeking new opportunities, it also creates a lot of competition for hiring companies to secure new team members. Not only do hiring companies have to battle with potential counter offers from candidates’ current employers, but they also must ensure they are the candidates’ first choice as a new employer.

As much as salary and compensation are key factors in almost all job searches, companies cannot rely on remuneration alone – they need to go above and beyond to be a desirable workplace. Companies need to look at what they offer beyond salary, and how they can support employee wellbeing.

When we speak to candidates, we always talk to them about their motivations and aspirations; not only does this help us understand them as an individual, but it also helps us better understand what they’re looking for with potential employers. One of the main things they seek is not just what the day-to-day purpose of the job is, but also what the future progression within the company is. Companies who are willing to train, develop and support their employees and have a clear progression pathway are more appealing to the most ambitious and skilled candidates.

For our clients who have been successful in attracting top talent, they have been able to showcase the plans and initiatives they have in place that develop the hard and soft skills of employees and are able to explain how this will put potential employees in good stead for future promotions. Ultimately, candidates want to see a ‘promote from within culture’ and a clear pathway within the business.

One major selling point in the eyes of many candidates is flexibility. Whilst it’s understood that some hands-on, technical roles need to be operated from within the lab, many roles can be operated on a hybrid basis. Ever since COVID-19, candidates are used to working from home offices. Many feel that reducing their weekly travelling time means they’re less fatigued and more productive.

Not just working locations, but working hours are important to employees. We speak to so many candidates who have family commitments (such as picking children up from school). Showcasing flexibility and autonomy for candidates is an important step in the recruitment process for successful employers and can often be what gives them the edge over other opportunities a candidate may have.

If you’ve been struggling to recruit the best talent or would like to discuss how you can better sell your business to candidates, reach out to us today and we’d be happy to share our expertise.

Call us on +44 (0)1606 212020

Email us at ​[email protected]

If you have already engaged a recruiter partner to support you with those difficult-to-hire positions, then you could be off to a great start. If you have taken the time to select the right partner and done your due diligence, they will have experience hiring in your sector, a strong network built from similar successful searches, and various strategies and techniques to headhunt the right people for your organisation. But how do you ensure they prioritise your search assignment over the other organisations they also represent? What can you do to help increase the likelihood of a successful hire?

These questions of even more prevalent when you are under time pressure to have this hire in place, to coincide with wider business objectives or to take pressure off other members of the team. Bearing that in mind, here are a few ways to get the most out of your recruitment partnership.

Effective Communication – This sounds straightforward but ensuring clear and concise 2-way communication throughout the hiring process will help to strengthen the relationship between yourself and your recruitment partner. Regular communication is key to ensuring any possible problems or challenges are discussed and overcome swiftly before they delay the hiring process. This is even more vital when hiring in a candidate short market where your competition is looking to hire similar people and moving quickly.

Full job briefing – Taking the time to provide a detailed job briefing for the position you are hiring for will not only give your partner a better understanding of the position, but it also helps them to understand the culture of the team this person will be joining and what type of personality would best fit. 

Making this job profile as detailed as possible will help the recruiter make accurate assessments when screening and interviewing candidates on your behalf. Make sure you give tangible insights to your company to help them understand what makes your business great and why someone should join your team.

Where possible it is always good to go through the briefing in person, invite your recruitment partner to your office so that they can see things first-hand for themselves. Providing a full and detailed brief instils confidence in your recruitment partner that you are invested in the process and greatly increases the chance of you receiving suitable, well-vetted applications from someone who truly understands your business.

Exclusive search assignments – Offering a period of exclusivity on a search assignment is a good way to ensure your search is given preference over others being worked by your recruitment partner on a contingent basis. This means that for an agreed period of exclusivity (typically 6 weeks for a detailed search process) you agree to fully commit to working with this partner and no other. This option gives you the benefit of knowing your search is being given the time it requires and your search partner the confidence that you are invested in working with them to achieve a successful hire.

And let’s face it, you have a day job to do as well as hiring, so only communicating with one recruiter, saves you time. Working exclusively means your partner has dedicated time to carry out a detailed interview and screening process as well as providing you with useful feedback on each candidate’s application and suitability, meaning you don’t receive duplicated or poorly matched CVs.

Retained search assignments – Similarly, agreeing to partner with your recruiter on a retained search basis also means your hire will be prioritised over other contingent searches and hugely increases the accountability to deliver a successful search. In this instance, you agree to some financial commitment upon commencement of the search with the residual being invoiced when a successful candidate has been hired. Working in this way offers all the benefits of an exclusive assignment as well as weekly update calls with your recruitment partner and a clearly communicated and agreed timeline of key milestones throughout the search and selection process.

Delve Search has over 30 years’ experience in sourcing talent for the life science, engineering & semiconductor communities worldwide. Get in touch with our team to see how we can support you with your next hire.

Call us on +44 (0)1606 212020

Email us at ​[email protected]

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Keeping your current employees engaged and motivated can be hard, especially in larger organisations. In such a competitive market employees can be approached many times for new opportunities, so it is important to have your employees emotionally engaged to their work. Here are a few pointers on how to increase employee retention.

Leadership – Engagement starts at the top, management affects how engaged employees are, in turn effecting how likely they are to stay at the company. Leaders might underestimate how much of an influence they have on their company’s retention levels. They need to be engaged with their teams and provide a safe space for them to share their honest opinions. Employees work for people not companies.

Work-life balance – It is important to provide a work-life balance for your employees, stress and long hours can be detrimental to someone’s work ethic as well as mental health. There is now a demand for a new cultural focus on health and wellbeing and employees are less likely to tolerate such conditions. Moreover, if someone is overworked their productivity in the long run declines and their job satisfaction will decrease. Employees often feel pressured to work longer hours and not take vacation time, so making an environment where time off is encouraged will make them feel relaxed and increase productivity.

Flexible working environment – Employees are more likely to consider opportunities with a great work life balance, big factors to this are flexible working hours and environment. Now more than ever, people are working remotely or are looking for a hybrid position. It has been known a bad commute can be a big factor into employees quitting their job. Giving your employees control over their work and flexible schedules, will increase their productivity and likelihood to stay with a company. If you give your employees a little trust and leeway, you’ll get trust and loyalty in return.

Pay attention to feedback – Communication is important within a company and in developing a team. Regular one-to-one meetings gives an employee opportunity to really say how they are feeling and highlight any issues they might be having. You can really gauge their happiness and job satisfaction. It’s an opportunity to see if their expectations are met and what you can do to rectify this is not.

Inclusive culture –  An inclusive culture can positively affect an employee’s performance as well as their well-being. A diverse work force increases creativity and provides them with a sense of belonging to a company. It is important for employees to feel appreciated and get recognition for their hard work. A way to do this is publicly showing recognition by presenting an employee’s accomplishments or creating annual awards, where they can be appreciated in front of management.

Employee growth opportunities – One of people’s main motivators within a job is career growth and development opportunities. If employees remain stagnant in a role, they will want to seek new challenges outside their current organisation. It is important to set out a clear development plan and structure that employees know they can work towards. It doesn’t always have to be a new title and pay rise, but small things like new projects or responsibilities that offer a challenge can make a difference.

Even little changes can make a big difference to how appreciated an employee feels.

To find out more about how we can support you with your hiring strategy contact our experienced team.

Call us on +44 (0)1606 212020

Email us at ​[email protected]

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Picture this, the candidate has verbally accepted the position, anyone would think it is all done and dusted.

However, there are so many factors to bear in mind in the time between the offer being accepted and the new team member starting in the position in the new company. 

Diligence and attention to detail is key, as the earlier you know about any potential issues, the more time you have to find a solution. 

Here are some of the risks to be aware of:

• A drop in communication beyond what is usual, usually means there is an issue
• Any other interviews and applications candidates have ongoing pose a significant risk, so it is important to ask about this throughout the process
• We have seen a stark rise in counteroffers recently, we follow up with candidates after they have handed their notice in to see if the company produces a counteroffer whether it be monetary, progression or anything else persuasive enough to stay in the company 
• Personal circumstances can change out of the blue, so building up a good relationship with the candidate is key to having transparent communication should issues arise
• If the candidate has a longer notice period e.g. 3 months, this poses more risk for anything to occur in that time.

Essentially, clear and regular communication is key in preventing factors to hinder the offer acceptance not only at this latter stage, but throughout the process.

Delve Search maintain regular contact with clients and candidates throughout the recruitment process to establish good relationships and maintain clear communication. To find out more about our strategic approach to your hiring process, get in touch with our experienced team.

Call us on +44 (0)1606 212020

Email us at ​[email protected]

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We are only a few weeks into 2023 and the competition for talented professionals is already showing. Many companies finalised hiring strategies towards the end of 2022 with a view to implement this as early as possible.

We’ve highlighted three key reasons why an early start is key to your 2023 hiring strategy.

New Year New Me

With lots of talented individuals having had time off coming in to 2023, it’s given people a chance to think about their longer-term aspirations and the pathway that will help them achieve this. This has led to a rise in the amount of people transitioning from being a secure employee to becoming a part of the curious majority – where they might not be actively searching for a position but are now open to the idea of change.

However, the further into the year we get, the more candidates will begin to discount change due to being heavily involved in projects or tracking well to achieve targets. So, if you know a new team member will greatly benefit the company, don’t delay and strike while the idea of change is fresh in a candidate’s mind.

The idea of a fresh start in a new company early in a new year can be very persuasive.

Settling in & up-skilling

Hiring later in the year can sometimes (but not always) lead to a prolonged settling in period for new talent. One thing to consider is that bringing someone new into the business with the end of year targets or deadlines looming may unknowingly, add pressure on them. This could lead to disappointment or a more difficult time mentally adjusting to the change if they feel like they’ve not managed to achieve goals in such a short space of time.

Whereas when hiring early in the year, especially in the first quarter, these targets can seem less daunting and not at the forefront of talk within the office. This can allow new team members to settle in and not feel under pressure from day one.

Competitive market

At the beginning of the year, lots of businesses are already advertising new jobs or searching for new talent immediately. If you’re waiting until later in the year to hire new team members, it can make it difficult in a number of aspects such as:

• already has a job offer
• currently interviewing elsewhere
• recently signed a contract or have only recently changed companies

You may see some of these potential candidates taking jobs elsewhere because they were already further into the hiring process before speaking to you. This could lead to delays in your hiring process or not being able to pick the person who you feel is best suited to the position.

Speak to our team to see how we can help you kick start your 2023 hiring. 

Call us on +44 (0)1606 212020

Email us at ​[email protected]

The hiring process is just that, it takes time to make the right assessments across technical skills and cultural fit into your business. However, so many companies can be ‘too busy’ to hire or just don’t see the value investing the time to work in partnership with recruitment companies. This means the crucial first steps of fully understanding what the requirement is, what the dealbreakers are, and what can/can’t be flexed in the ‘wish list’, can detriment the rest of the process, making it more time consuming. 

We have included below our key points to consider when recruiting:

1. Feedback both ways is important, this enables for tweaks to be made to the search if needed to find the right candidate. For example, feeding back to the client if the salary bracket isn’t aligned with the current market
2. The effect to the business in having the role vacant can be very costly and when you’re solely focussed on filling a role asap, the longer-term perspective can be overlooked 
3. Having a high volume of CV’s sent over defies the point of working with a recruitment company, especially when it is from multiple recruiters. This doesn’t increase the chance of hiring the position, you will ultimately be spending more time going through a lot of CVs that aren’t right for the role
4. The same role in one company will likely differ to another company due to factors such as the size of the company, whether they are part of a larger group, reporting lines in the business, sector differences etc so the recruiter should want to understand what this looks like in your business, approaching the role as a bespoke project.

At Delve, we will always aim to get the crucial information from our clients in person at the start, this enables us to see the environment for ourselves, understand the right person to fit to the business and build a transparent relationship with the client moving forwards.

For further information on our bespoke approach to engineering recruitment, visit our Engineering page or contact us on +44 (0)1606 212 020.