Values Driven Recruitment

A few years ago, I was at a meeting with companies who work in the disability services industry, and they were all excited as a commissioned study had come out concerning the importance of values-based recruitment in their industry. I was blown away! I have been practicing values-based recruitment for over 20 years. This is even more important in an industry where you are dealing with vulnerable people. You would be looking for candidates who have high levels of empathy, integrity, resilience and respect. I see that as a no brainer and I am quite often surprised that all recruiters do not practice values-driven recruitment.

Aligning the values of the candidate with the values of your business will absolutely aid in staff retention, allow more cohesiveness within your team, and support the way in which you do business with your customers. I am an extremely values-based employee and will not work for an organisation that does not align with my core values. For someone like me, it is not enough to talk the talk – you need to also walk the walk.

Your company values should be in every step of the recruitment phase from advertising to screening and interviewing; and flow through to the onboarding process. You need to show your new employee that your values are more than a list of words on a poster, they are fundamental to every interaction both external and internal in your company. You need to show consistency and demonstrate the importance of your values during every step of the process.

You should write your values in your advert, and this can be as simple as listing them in the “To be considered for this job you will need the ability to align with our core values of …”. An employee like myself will be looking for these. We will also be looking at your website to see if our values align with yours. When you are pre-screening candidates, ask them some behavioural based questions that indicate if their values are in alignment. Repeat this again in the formal interview process and take time to explain the behaviours that reflect those values during the onboarding process.

Candidates are more likely to be looking at your values now than they were two years ago. The challenges of Covid have resulted in people reassessing what is important to them, so to attract and retain the top talent, take the time to show them who you are.