When it comes to growing your team, only the best will do. For many businesses, though, this means hiring people most skilled to do the job – which is all well and good, but misses out some key requirements, like how well they fit with the company culture, and whether or not they reflect the values you’ve cultivated over several years. By only focusing on skills, it can be all too common to be answering ‘no’ to those criteria. That’s why to get the best, businesses need to start recruiting outside the box.
Finding a Place with MAP
At My Accountancy Place, this idea of recruiting through creative means has helped us to source some fantastic talent – all of whom we know will work well to advance the vision of the business and help MAP to reach its ultimate goals.
As a result, our recruitment process – consisting of five steps – ensures that we get to witness several different dimensions from each candidate, before offering successful individuals with a position at MAP HQ. The process goes a little something like this:
- Attract Candidates – We source candidates using a mixture of methods, which include traditional recruiters and organic means, such as social media. This multi-pronged approach empowers us to find a much wider mix of individuals than if we only chose one method.
- Group Interviews – After having a glance over CVs, we invite candidates to join one of our regular group interviews. Within the group interviews, we assign two enjoyable and interactive tasks which allow us to see how candidates interact with others and how well they work as a team. We’ve found that making it enjoyable helps to bring out the best in every individual and makes ours a memorable interviewing experience.
- Video Story – Successful candidates from the group interview are then asked to provide us with a video telling us more about themselves. Over the last year, we’ve seen some really creative feats at this stage – which is a positive sign when dealing with digital creatives! At this stage, people are pushed out of their comfort zone and have a chance to let us know more about who they are outside of the workplace. And as many of you will know, we love making a video or two at My Accountancy Place – it’s a rite of passage.
- Technical Fit – A candidate can talk the talk, but can they walk the walk? This is where we take traditional interviews one step further to measure a candidate’s skills against a challenging task or two. That way, we can be confident that they’ll be able to meet our clients’ needs.
- The Final Hurdle – Last, but by no means least, after filling in a survey on their values, candidates who have reached the final stage discuss their results with our MD Paul and Director of Strategy, Roger.
Why We Do Things Differently
It may sound like a lot of work, but believe us when we say it’s worth it to find the perfect fit for our business. We’ve discovered that finding the most extraordinary candidates means you have to be extraordinary in your approach, and each stage works to tease out another dimension to each individual.
The group interview and technical fit in particular play important roles. The former allows us to gauge whether or not there’s a cultural fit between interviewees and our current team, whilst the latter provides insight into whether the overall quality of expertise can be maintained. Asking candidates to provide a video, on the other hand, gives us the opportunity to sneak a peek into their personal lives and learn who they are as a person, rather than just a ‘member of staff’ (we hate that word).
From start to finish, our process is a refreshing approach to recruiting – and as a result of implementing it, we’ve been able to find the people who sit well at the heart of the business. And really, that’s what it’s all about: finding the people who belong with your business.
So next time you’re despairing at making a new hire, why not try a different approach? Ask something different of candidates, add an engaging new element to the interview process, or change how you’re sourcing individuals. You never know what thinking outside the box could do for your recruitment efforts!
Think what you’ve got to join the My Accountancy Place team? Check out our opportunities or email your CV to [email protected] to find out about our next group interview date.
