A career in events in fast-paced and incredibly varied. An actual event might only last for a few hours, but it could take months and months of meticulous planning. Finding the right people for your events company is a delicate balance. On the one hand, you want people with a passion for event planning and a flair for organisation. But every now and then, it helps to look outside the confines of the fairly insular industry to try to attract fresh, raw talent.
If you’re recruiting for an events role, there are a few things you need to consider throughout the process. In this article, we will look at every stage in the process, from defining the role to working with recruiters.
Define the role
The first step to hiring the best talent is to define the role. What skills are missing from your company and what experience do you want the new employee to bring to the table? Defining the role in this way will give you a much better idea of the level of support you need. If the work is largely administrative, you could hire a junior staff member and train them up to your standards. But if you need a self-starter with vision, you’re going to be looking for a more experienced member of staff.
Write a job description
Now you have a well-defined role, you can start writing the job description. The clue is in the word “description”. Make it descriptive as possible so prospective candidates know what you are looking for. There is a temptation to be vague in order to widen the net, but in reality, you will just deter the best applicants. If you know what you are looking for, don’t be afraid to get specific. Load your job description up with keywords that are likely to get your advert noticed by all the right people.
Advertise in the right places
Advertising on the generic job sites is a great way to flood your inbox with irrelevant, copy-and-paste applications. Get specific and think about where events industry workers spend their time online. Advertising on industry-specific websites might cost a little more, but it’s the best way to ensure your advert lands in front of all the right people.
Your advert may be picked up and shared across aggregate job websites, and there isn’t really much you can do about this. While you might have some spammy job applications, it should be fairly easy to filter them by source. Don’t dismiss these applications outright, as there might be some strong applications hidden amongst the generic ones.
Use a specialist recruiter
If you want to make the most of your time, using a specialist recruiter can help. A recruiter not only helps to pre-screen applicants, but they may already have people on their books who could be perfect for your company.
Working with a recruitment agency like ourselves, Live Recruitment, will give you access to a wide range of applicants. Recruiters typically keep in touch with a large number of candidates, even those who might not be actively looking for a new role. The candidates will be pre-screened by your recruitment agency, so you know that you’ll only be spending time interviewing the very best. Recruitment can be a time-consuming process if you don’t manage it correctly.
Look in-house
If you can’t find the skills you’re looking for in an external candidate, the answer could be sitting right under your nose. Look at the people you already have in your company and ask if anyone could be promoted or trained up for a new role. The star employee you’ve been looking for might be closer than you think.