All too often employers interviewing candidates forget or underplay their influence during interviews. What do I mean? The way you interview candidates and drive the recruitment process can make you far more appealing to work with, or less. It’s a major driver of employer branding.

The strongest candidates are often meeting several potential businesses and colleagues. They want to see what you have to offer. The more engaged you are and the more thought you put into your recruitment process, the more likely they will choose your opportunity (should you offer it to them!).

Here are five things we have noticed many desirable New Zealand workplaces do during their recruitment process:

1. Involve a broad variety of the team in the interview process: And not just the leadership team, colleagues the candidate may work along side. It shows that they are a cohesive team with a strong leadership who back their team and are confident enough to share decision making responsibility. But it also shows they are willing to invest their team’s time in finding the right people to join them, i.e. their people matter to them, a lot.

2. Create a two-way interview by proactively providing good context about who you are, where you are going and what this person can bring to the table. Talk authentically about these topics and challenges with a level of trust that makes the candidate feel part of your team already, engaged in your plans and agendas. Within this dialogue, talk about the role, its influence (impact) on the business and its stakeholders and why it’s important (connect to your purpose). And don’t just do this at the end of the interview when asked, proactively engage candidates in their journey and prioritise these elements as key parts of the discussion.

3. Where appropriate, take candidates on site or office tours: make a point of showing candidates your environment, where it is that they’d be based. If it’s a technical role, show them the equipment they’d be using and the environment they’d be situated in. Let them get a feel for who is working around the business. This also conveys your teams pride in your business.

4. Move swiftly: after receiving a profile or resume, make a decision on who you will interview swiftly. After each interview, feedback is shared within 1-2 days and larger decisions don’t take much longer. By moving relatively fast, you’ll show confidence in the candidate.

5. Provide clear, actionable feedback, that helps candidates move forward in their career one way or another. Sometimes this can be hard work, but in the long run it only helps.

-Scitex