4 Tips to hire smarter in 2023

Hiring in 2023 is shaping up to be equally as unique and challenging as the past 3 years have been in general.  With the rise of layoffs and hiring in some industries, and the continued labor shortage and competition for talent in others, one thing is certain; your company should be adapting to this new hiring landscape and being more strategic and deliberate in it’s approach to talent acquisition and retention

Focus on the cost of hiring.

The largest expense for most businesses is staffing. The costs of recruitment marketing, hiring, salary, taxes, benefits, training, and time waiting for new hires to ramp up to full productivity is expensive, and often has multiple key areas in your workflows you can optimize to reduce costs.  

"But many employers estimate the total cost to hire a new employee can be three to four times the position's salary."

One area you can focus on is reducing your costs associated with bad hires, rehiring, and production efficiency.  According to the latest benchmarking data from the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM), the average cost per hire was nearly $4,700. But many employers estimate the total cost to hire a new employee can be three to four times the position's salary, according to Edie Goldberg, founder of the Menlo Park, California based talent management and development company E.L. Goldberg & Associates.

By conducting background checks on all candidates during the recruitment process, you’ll be able to obtain a better understanding of the candidate's past work history, criminal record, and other relevant factors. These factors are pivotal in identifying candidates who are a good fit for the role they’re being considered for, and your company’s culture in general.  Finding the right person at this stage exponentially increases the chance the candidate will remain with the company for years to come.

Improve your candidate experience.

Candidates expect you to provide an easy-to-use, modern experience throughout your screening and onboarding practice.  The background screening process will be one of the first impressions they have of your brand, and it will set the stage for how they perceive future interactions. Make sure your candidates can fill out forms where, when, and how they want when you send them.  They’ll be happier, you’ll speed up hiring, and your brand will look great.    

Verify as much information as possible.

"Google searches for advice relating to faking resumes and job references are up an average of 48% and 52% respectively in the last 12 months."

Candidates can provide false information resumes, or parts of their resume In fact, many are, more often than ever before. According to a recent StandOutCV survey, 55% of Americans have lied about their personal details, skills, experience, or references on their resumes at least once. In fact, those that do are searching for better ways to do so. “Google searches for advice relating to faking resumes and job references are up an average of 48% and 52% respectively in the last 12 months.”  If not verified properly, you may end up with a costly bad hire, which puts you back at square one filling the role, or worse, a negligent hiring claim or lawsuit.  

Review your workflows and vendors and look for optimization opportunities.

Change management is one of the most painful areas for businesses. Yet, no organization can move forward without change. With goals shifting toward efficiencies and cost savings in 2023, the opportunity for change is top-of-mind in most companies.

Don’t make the mistake of approaching change from a technology upgrade perspective while hoping to achieve your business goals. Rather, focus on the opportunity to review and optimize underlying business processes first to bring context to your needs and pain points. A truly successful change management project will rely on technology, process, and human elements. Create a vendor/technology audit plan. Break the project into easily understandable stages. Identify all resources necessary within your organization needed for each stage. Work with vendors who take a professional services approach to delivery and complement and manage those resource asks. Set expectations for resource requests through each phase and define the process as clearly as possible.

As this pertains to the screening industry, you should look for a background screening company that has a framework for transition and dedicated management team to guide you through the process. They will be able to identify needs and challenges and assist with pre-planning, due diligence, program planning, IT integration, readiness and adoption, post-launch review and ongoing optimization and guidance. A company such as Vault Workforce Screening will help you in all these areas, and can ultimately optimize your screening program for faster, lower cost, candidate friendly screening you can rely on.  We’ll even review your program in detail to make recommendations where you can improve, regardless of whether you move forward with us (more info below).

So take action to optimize today to achieve your goals in this new hiring landscape, and you’ll certainly see improvement and cost savings. By just looking at these four area of improvement, you’ll uncover many areas in which you can optimize your brand, candidate and employee experience, and chances for success now and in the future.    

Vault is currently offering a free 30-minute screening program review with our compliance experts. A clearly defined program and policy ensures consistency, accuracy, and efficiency in your process no matter what type of workers you’re hiring. There’s no better time than now to review your overall screening program and policy to ensure they’re providing the best experience possible, while mitigating risk. Schedule your free program review today.

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