At risual we really believe in allocating the appropriate time to find the most suitable applicants for our IT apprenticeships. It’s so important that we find the right people for the right roles and ensure that both apprentice and employer get the most from the qualification. Best thing though is that we offer this service completely free!!
So, to the recruitment process.
No matter how much information a CV has, it never really tells you about the person who wrote it. If we like what they’ve written, we would then complete a telephone interview to find out more about them. We use a concise set of questions that will help us gain a clearer picture of whether they would be good for the job, but also delve a deeper to ascertain if the apprenticeship role is right for them.
We ask questions about what they like to do outside of work, and the extra-curricular activities they have participate in. While they may be able to do the work well, we also want to learn about who they are, therefore trying to discover more about the candidate’s personality and interests.
Going through a formulated set of questions to determine if candidates can fulfil the job needs is vitally important as it helps establish confidence in knowing that you have logically gone through a purposeful recruiting process and have chosen people based on defined metrics rather than gut a feeling. When this is completed, you increase your chances of having someone succeed in the job.
But it should never fall to just one person to bring in the new team members; as many people as possible should be involved. Whilst we complete the CV sifting and telephone interviews and only present the applicant’s we feel would be most suitable for the role (a real time saver), it is the employer’s decision that really counts.
Managers should feel responsible for building up the team but it’s often easy to forget that others will have to work with this new person, fitting into a team is extremely important. Granted, it isn’t always practical to have three, four, five or more people all sitting in one interview but at the very least a summary should be delivered to the team along with allowing others a sneak peek at their CV.
Not only does this help to give you a better idea of whether this new hire would fit in well with the rest of the team, it also shows your existing employees just how much you value their opinion. And it demonstrates to those above you that you truly care about the future of the business and hiring the right people.
If you don’t need to constantly replace people, you will save time and money on the recruitment and training of new candidates. Understanding that downtime could negatively affect your business revenues if you become short-staffed. There are costs and time spent putting out job ads, interviews and training new people.
I firmly believe the recruitment of any apprentice is pivotal in the whole process, we want the apprentice to gain valuable qualifications, work knowledge and most importantly enjoy the experience and we also want the employer to gain a valuable member of their team so recruiting the correct person is the only way this can all work.
