The Psychology of Hiring Top Talent

Candidate psychology is a deciding factor in your ability to hire top talent.

A basic understanding of recruitment psychology can help you determine what drives the candidates you want to hire, whether your do actually want to hire them, and if so, what will make them want to work for you.

Here of a few simple ideas based around psychology that will help you recruit top talent!

Let’s start with drive. Drive refers to the factors at play in dictating our actions.

What factors influence passive candidates to open a dialogue with recruiters? What factors compel an employed person to browse job boards on their mobile phone whilst on their lunch break? These are questions all recruiters would love to hold the answers to, and understanding what drives potential hires will help provide them.

There are lots of potential answers to these questions, but as a rule, when it comes to drive, job satisfaction is key.

Job satisfaction, or lack thereof, is what makes passive candidates open to the idea of chatting with a recruiter. The promise of job satisfaction is also the major motivator for a job seeker when applying for your open positions.

By applying this knowledge you can build a more effecting recruitment strategy almost immediately by improving your job ads.

Start by rearranging the traditional format of your job ads. Instead of beginning with a list of what you need from a potential candidate, capture job seekers’ attention immediately by listing what your company has to offer them.

Also, try to create job ads centred around the theme of job satisfaction by highlighting the perks your company offers, the rewards of the position on offer, and the things that make your company culture most appealing.

Now that you’ve nabbed a landslide of applicants with your new and improved job ads, you’ll need to sift through the talent to find the best fit for your company.

There are a million and one blog posts advising you on what you should ask the candidate during an interview, but very few of them will give you tips about what to ask yourself.

The interview process begins before your candidate walks in the door, it begins with your mindset.

According to Andrea Sharfin, the best question to ask yourself is: Will this candidate bring more to my organization than they will take from it.

Keep that question in the back of your mind throughout the hiring process.

Do they seem reliable? Would they be a good fit for your team? Would you enjoy working with them? Is their attitude positive? Are they asking informed, intelligent questions?

With every answer they give, think about it in terms of what they’ll bring to your team, or what it could possibly take away!

Now on to making your top picks want to join your company.

It’s easy to forget that the interview process goes both ways. You must sell your company, and job opening to the interviewee if you want to motivate them to accept your offer.

Obviously benefits, pay scale, and opportunity for promotion will all play a roll in their decision. Less obvious is the importance of how you make them feel throughout the hiring process.

Candidate experience matters, it is often the deciding factor in whether or not a candidate chooses to accept your offer.

One of the best ways to improve candidate experience during the interview process is by tapping into your interviewee’s desire for respect and acknowledgement.

Tell your potential hire what you like about their resume, then ask them to expound upon those points.

You will learn more about what they have to offer, and they will leave the interview with a warm, positive feeling about you and the company you represent.

In fact, I bet it will make you feel pretty darn good too!

I hope you’ve enjoyed these tips.

Happy hiring!