The secret to recruitment success

Would you like to know the secret to success when it comes to recruitment?

Well, hang around because I'm going to tell you in a moment, but I'll start with a famous quote from Henry Ford.

He said, "If you always do what you've always done, you'll always get what you've always got."

How does this apply to recruitment in the veterinary profession right now?

By the admission of many people working in the profession, the veterinary industry can be a little bit behind the times when it comes to change. That said, most people will embrace new and emerging science and technology, but when it comes to recruitment and retention the veterinary industry can still be quite traditional in its thinking.

Traditional methods of recruitment, such as advertising, are producing very little results these days, because so many practices are recruiting right now.

So how do you stand out? How do you communicate your brand culture, values, and principles in written text in a way that lands really powerfully with the reader?

I can say with absolute certainty that reactive recruitment no longer works. And when I talk about reactive recruitment I mean placing an advert or handing over the responsibility to an agency, or several agencies, with little to no control or influence over the results. Although as a practice owner / leader you need to show your team you're doing something about this recruitment crisis, you could be wasting thousands of pounds on something that is no longer effective.

What's the secret? How do you get good at recruiting people?

Listen carefully.

You observe what the majority of practices are doing when it comes to recruitment and you do the opposite.

Most practices are struggling to recruit right now. Why would you do the same things? Why would you replicate their strategies?

Take a look around and notice who is doing recruitment really well right now.  Take a look around and have a look at which practices are retaining their people. Why can they do that when the message out there right now is that people are burning out and everyone's leaving their profession?

Success leaves clues, so do failures.

I'm going to leave you with five ways you can start to approach recruitment differently today:

1. Know your brand and communicate it consistently and confidently out into the market.
2. Look outside of the industry for cool and interesting recruitment strategies that could work for you. Experiment with different things, use data to measure success and see what works and do more of that.
3. Make sure your interview process creates an experience and a lasting impression. If someone has had a great experience with you, whether they join your team or not, they will provide free marketing for you in the future. They will tell other people about you and recommend you as an employer to other people. They might also become a potential future hire if you get it right the first time you meet them.
4. Spend time creating and refining your retention strategy to hold on to your best assets.
5. Most of all, watch your thinking. If you think and feel recruitment is all doom and gloom right now, you will experience exactly that.

Remember, it's noisy out there right now, so don't follow the crowd.

Do it differently and you will see different results.