Five reasons why your recruitment process needs work (and how to improve it)

The working world is a bustling, interconnected network — organisations have a lot more on the line when it comes to building an employer brand nowadays, and it means they can’t afford to throw away their hard work by offering a poor candidate experience.

News travels fast, especially bad news. A lacklustre recruitment process could hinder your chances of securing the best talent on the market. Here’s why your recruitment might need a bit of work, and how to do it.

1. It’s too slow

Speed and remuneration are typically the mainstay features of recruitment. High demand tends to translate into plenty of options for the candidate — a speedy process boosts response rates, improves your talent pipeline, reduces dropouts, and signifies candidate investment.

Tips to improve: use a specialist recruiter, automate your onboarding process, combine interview stages, use clear and concise job ads, make applying as easy as possible, and always communicate.

2. There’s a lack of communication

Poor communication can stunt a recruitment process like nothing else. Candidates deserve feedback and need to be kept in the loop. If you’re not able to communicate their progress, a competitor will.

Tips to improve: prioritise transparency and feedback, leverage the right channels of communication, personalise your comms, provide regular updates, articulate and stick to a timeline.

3. It’s not inclusive

An inclusive employer brand starts long before you start the talent hunt — it starts with your messaging. Biased and coded language in job ads can turn applicants away before you even have a chance to meet them, and the process itself needs to be accessible too.

Tips to improve: use a bias decoding tool to write better job ads, write a diversity and inclusion statement, commit to regular bias training, measure progress with data, increase representation amongst your hiring managers, set diversity targets, and update your D&I policy to reflect the current landscape.

4. It doesn’t attract the right candidates

Are you struggling to reach the right people? A bad hire can cost a business £114,000 per employee on average, alongside damaged morale and stunted business growth.

Tips to improve: write more specific job ads, showcase your company values and mission, widen your search (transferable skills are invaluable in emergent areas like bioprocessing), promote your culture, get creative with your perks, keep communication open, and consider candidates from alternative academic backgrounds.

5. You’re looking in the same old networks

Hiring managers who leverage the same old networks won’t come up with results as quickly as a specialist life sciences recruitment partner will, and you’re having to compete inside the same talent pool.

Tips to improve: use a specialist recruiter with access to a wider talent network, source overseas talent, look outside your hiring manager’s network, and use marketing to make your brand stand out from competitors in the right way.

Support from BioTalent

Here at BioTalent, we use a people-first approach to hiring in the life sciences, underpinned by our diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging methodology. By drawing from our unique community networks, we can create access to underrepresented, hard-to-reach talent that you won’t find anywhere else.

If you have any questions at all, reach out to the team below.