During recent years, we’ve seen many companies and industries changing the way they decided on choosing a given candidate. Instead of leaving the responsibility to a hiring manager only, companies are now involving whole teams in the process. Now, they are using a strategy called “collaborative hiring”, on which the decision-making process is not delegated to one person only.
There are many benefits that come with implementing a collaborative hiring approach in our business. However, before we jump right into this model, we need to understand what exactly collaborative hiring is, what are the benefits, and how to start implementing this strategy.
What Is Collaborative Hiring?
Collaborative hiring is a relatively new strategy we can add to our talent acquisition process. Traditionally, companies have seen recruiting personnel as a top-down process. This means that one or several hiring managers would deal with as many applicants as there were, individually. Thus, giving quite an important task to only one or a few people to deal with.
On the other hand, collaborative hiring involves an entire team of employees from our company. Therefore, the recruitment process becomes more democratic and diverse, which in turns brings many benefits and opportunities.
What Are the Benefits of Collaborative Hiring?
There are several benefits that come from implementing this type of strategies to our hiring process. To begin with, it will give us a more diverse, thus complete, impression of the candidates we interview. Also, when we involve our team in the hiring process, we have the chance to obtain relevant and useful feedback about the way our company works. Besides, they might have a better understanding of the skills and abilities needed to fulfill a given position.
Another benefit of implementing a collaborative hiring strategy is that our team members will know we value their opinion. This will also create a sense of responsibility for the new hire, as they were part of choosing a given candidate. Therefore, our staff might show a more welcoming and integrating attitude, helping the new hire learn faster, and become a better apprentice.
How Can I Start Implementing this Hiring Process?
If our recruitment process doesn’t involve collective hiring, there are a few steps we can take to implement this strategy. The first aspect we need to consider is that we will need to create a team that will work along our HR professionals. Such a team must include staff members from different areas and departments of our company. Ideally, you want to make sure your hiring team includes employees that are above and below the open position. This will provide us with a more dynamic and holistic impression of the candidate that we interview.
Another important aspect to consider is that, as we adopt this model, we will need to keep revising it. Unfortunately, obtaining ideal results might take some time, until we are able to gather the perfect hiring team. However, getting as much feedback as possible from as many employees, managers, and candidates altogether will help us find the right balance.
