SearchPath of Chicago News
Employee Spotlight – Mark Ragland
At SearchPath Chicago, we’re good at what we do and the reason that we’re successful is because we have a team of highly qualified and motivated professionals. Just as we’re able to locate the professionals to fill needed roles without clients, we were able to locate the best of the best in the business. Today, we want to introduce to one of our key players: Mark Ragland, VP Talent Acquisition. Mark has been with us going on 13 years and has seen success in servicing the Biofuels, Food Ingredient and Personal Care Ingredient industries.
Here is just one of Mark’s successes since he has been with SearchPath of Chicago:
“Last year I got hold of a hiring manager after 2 years of monthly voicemails only to have him tell me exactly why he won’t use recruiters. He shared with me stories of dishonesty and ineptitude in his experience working with headhunters. I empathized with his experience, having seen the darker side of this business myself. As his tone began to soften, I was able to probe a bit about his business and their sales efforts (this was a VP of Sales for a food ingredient company). Pretty soon he was asking ME questions about how I find top salespeople and deliver them, and I shared my process with him thoroughly. By the time we finished our phone call, he asked me to send along our retained fee agreement as he needed a salesperson for his growing Midwest territory. Over the next several weeks, we were paid our retainer, delivered 3 excellent candidates for his role and placed the top candidate. We have since received several calls in the months since this hire to tell us what a fantastic job our candidate is doing and have recently been retained on yet another search.”
Recruiting Industry News & Articles
3 Reasons to Streamline Your Hiring Process
3 Reasons to Streamline Your Hiring Process
By Chris Hillman, Recruiting Professional
SearchPath of Chicago, Inc.
searchpathofchicago.com
How to Streamline Your Hiring Process
Ensuring the process of finding, vetting and onboarding new talent is speedy and efficient is important to not only the bottom line but also in employee satisfaction. The first impression is key to getting off on the right foot and ultimately helping with employee retention. Below are some tips to help streamline your process:
- Update Job Descriptions – Even though you may not be hiring for all positions all of the time, it’s important to regularly update job descriptions as roles evolve. This ensures that when the need arises to fill a specific role, you don’t have to spend creating a job description but rather just review and refine.
- Necessary People Involved – Depending on the level of the position, the number of people involved in the process may differ. For each role, determining the right people is just as important as determining the number of people. Too many people involved can severely slow down the process. Not only does it complicate scheduling interviews but all complicates the feedback loop and the timing of the decision. Narrowing down the number of people involved helps expedite the time from beginning to hire.
- Utilizing a Search Firm – An executive search firm is skilled at sourcing across all levels and openings. Partners like this help control cost, timeliness, process and allows internal teams to focus on their day-to-day responsibilities.
- Find Top Talent – One definite way to expedite the hiring process is to not have to weed through unqualified applicants by using an executive search firm to source top talent. Using traditional methods will fill the funnel with candidates but search partners will help bring the top talent to the top of the funnel quickly.
Accelerating the hiring process is not only beneficial to the candidates but also to the company. Providing candidates with an experience that allows them to know what’s going on with good communication and little wait time provides an excellent first impression. For any company, it’s imperative to fill positions as quickly as possible with qualified professionals.
For additional information, please email Chris Hillman or call (815) 261-4403 x 100
3 Reasons to Streamline Your Hiring Process
By Chris Hillman, Recruiting Professional
SearchPath of Chicago, Inc.
searchpathofchicago.com
Hiring top talent isn’t something to be taken lightly or even done on a whim. There are many factors that to consider during the process as a whole such as: the job title, who is the hiring manager, what does the team structure look like, what skills are most important, when do you need them hired by, etc. Typically, the ‘when do you need them hired by’ is what dictates the timeline of the hire. However, there are other reasons to ensure that the hiring process is quick and efficient and those are:
- Productivity Loss: – All companies have goals that they are striving for and if a company is hiring for a position it means that the position is needed in order to achieve those goals. Meeting those goals cannot be realized while those significant positions are sitting unfilled because overall productivity is not firing on all expected cylinders. Ensuring that the interview process is quick an efficient, ensures that productivity is at its peak even sooner.
- Competition – Competition for top talent is thick. One keyway to keep top talent out of the company is by making the interviewing process too lengthy. If your company wants them, it’s fairly probable that so do your competitors. If they can get through the interviewing process is half the time, it’s likely that candidates won’t wait around and you’ll let them slip through your fingertips.
- First Impressions – If the process is too slow, unorganized or has a lack of urgency to it, it can give candidates the wrong impression. Candidates want to feel wanted and needed and feel like they are making a good decision to join a new company. They want to know that they are making a jump to a company that has it together. If their first impression is that you don’t, it may make them jump ship before you truly have a chance to bring them onboard.
Ensuring the process of finding, vetting and onboarding new talent is speedy and efficient is important to not only the bottom line but also in employee satisfaction. The first impression is key to getting off on the right foot and ultimately helping with employee retention.
For additional information, please email Chris Hillman or call (815) 261-4403 x 100