Recently, we’ve been talking a lot about the many aspects to consider before hiring someone, during the interview process, and even some tips to keep in mind after you’ve actually hired a PPC. We’ve dove into different types of PPCs, different types of companies, and even different types of payment methods for your PPC. However, there’s one aspect that we haven’t covered yet, and is as important as the actual PPC search: what happens if we’ve been in the search for a PPC for a while, have interviewed candidates and everything, and still seem to not be able to hire anyone? Why can this happen, and how can we fix it?
So let’s say that you and your team have decided that it’s time to hire a PPC expert, designed the job profile that you are looking for, created an awesome PPC job offer, and proceeded to publish it everywhere. Then you received a couple of applications, filtered them, and interviewed your favorite candidates. Then you continued the hiring process, maybe interviewed some more or some more times, some of them even got to meet the team. But the months went by, and for some reason, no one seems to match the kind of person you are looking for, and you keep meeting and rejecting candidates, delaying the hiring process. And because this is a much more common situation than it might look like, today we’ll be going all about this specific subject, so let’s dive in and see why this may be happening, and how to stop it! Shall we?
Is there any pressure?
It is one thing to be delaying a hiring process if you have all the time in the world, and a very different one if you have something or someone rushing you to do so. Of course, no one loves working under pressure (but I do love Under Pressure!), but it is something that more often than not we don’t get to choose whether or not to do. So, if you are not actually in a rush to hire your PPC, then you can sit back and relax while you keep browsing through candidates. However, if you are not in a position to sit back and relax, then you may want to start optimizing your hiring process. Lucky for you, we are here to help with that!
Being 100% sure about what you want (or somewhere close)
Just like with many aspects of life, it is much harder to find what we want if we don’t really know what it is that we want. Of course, we are looking for a PPC specialist, but that doesn’t really narrow the search so much. So besides defining the role that you’ll want your new employee to occupy, you must define the kind of person you want your PPC to be. Some personal characteristics will be an awesome match with your team and some others that will be more likely to create chaos, and you must know how to identify which ones are the ones you want, and which ones will be a major red flag. In addition to “knowing what you want”, you also should consider everyday tasks for your new PPC, how experienced you’ll want them to be, how qualified, and pretty much all the aspects that help you actually determine the kind of candidate that will suit your needs the best.
An interesting tangent to go through here is if you actually do know what you are looking for in your PPC, whether your job offer is clear enough. Maybe you know for sure the type of candidate you need, but your job offer is giving the wrong information (or image) and, in consequence, attracting the wrong kind of candidates. So maybe,
The importance of flexibility
Once you’ve defined very clearly the type of candidate you are looking for, it’s also essential that you keep in mind which requirements you are willing to sacrifice and which ones are not negotiable. PPCs looking for a job come in all shapes and sizes, and maybe you are missing out on an incredible PPC just because it’s 90% what you want and not 100%. It is a very real possibility that your PPC search is not going well because you are being too strict on the requirements, and so you are rejecting thousands of candidates because they don’t totally fit everything you ask for. So, remember that everything but attitude can be learned and that if someone is super close to what you want, but lacks a little something, it may be worth the shot.
Are you giving the right image to your candidates?
It can happen that, after a couple of interviews, some candidates stop answering or simply let us know that they are no longer interested in the job position. And that’s a normal thing that can happen if this doesn’t become a recurrent event. There can be candidates that, while having interviews with your company, are also part of other company’s recruiting processes, and that they hire them before you do. And there can be candidates that, after a couple of interviews, realize that your company/PPC job is not really what they are looking for in a job. Both of these are fine, but what if this happens every time you are interviewing someone? Well, maybe it’s time to review your process. Job interviews are not just for the candidates to “sell” themselves, but also for you to “sell” your company. Do you have some awesome benefits? Let them know! Is your process maybe too long, and candidates get hired by other people before reaching the latest parts of it? Well, fix that! Basically, do your best to portrait your company as a place where everyone would like to work at and to make the process efficient and simple for your candidates.
To conclude, I believe these are key points of conflict when it comes to having a recruiting process that has extended much longer than expected, and a simple approach on how to fix them. However, there are cases where everything’s right, and the problem actually is that you really can’t find anyone because no one is a right fit (even when you know what your fit is, and also are remaining flexible). If that’s your case, then, if you have the time, just dig deeper and start targeting your candidates better, and if you are under pressure, then consider maybe giving a chance to the candidate that gets closer to your needs. Whichever the case is, I hope today’s entrance has helped you!
