1 Recruit to the business needs
“The current climate presents organisations with a huge opportunity to attract talent that hasn’t been there in recent years,” Phil Sheridan, managing director of Robert Half, the financial recruiter, said. “Have close collaboration between HR and the functional area that you’re hiring into and spend time up-front thinking about what the business really needs. The time invested will help you to make the right decisions.”

2 Tread carefully
“There is a perception that it is a buyer’s market. I would treat that with extreme caution,” Stuart Woollard, a visiting HR fellow at Kings College London, said. “This time firms are far keener to retain talent and make redundancies on specific, performance-based measures.” Fifty per cent of organisations questioned in a Robert Half survey believed that there was still a shortage of talent, despite there being more available candidates.

3 Be person-specific
When resources are tight, how do you deal with high volumes of applications? “Have a crystal-clear job spec and an uncompromising selection process,” Lynne Hardman, of Badenoch & Clark, the recruitment firm, said.

“We are making very targeted strategic hires across the business, going for specific individuals or skillsets,” Lesley Winterflood, of KPMG, a professional services firm, said. “Two years ago, if you wanted someone with experience of five areas, you would take them if they had three. Now we are after the finished article who can bring in those skills that are in short supply.”

4 Keep an open mind
“Companies have historically seen the best people as those with the most relevant experience,” Mr Sheridan said, “but different sector backgrounds can be very positive for an organisation.”

Mr Woollard cites First Direct, the bank, which, looking for customer service skills, initially recruited from the hotel industry rather than banking. Ms Hardman said that organisations should make certain allowances during the recruitment process: “Middle and senior management who have not been on the market before are suddenly looking for work. They are not very good interviewees.” Likewise, redundancy may have knocked a person’s confidence.

5 Have a cast-iron process
“Most companies react to hiring situations as emergencies [and that may] explain why they do it so poorly,” Claudio Fernández-Aráoz, a senior adviser with Egon Zehnder International, an executive search firm, said. He and colleagues from Harvard Business School, in a study published in the May edition of Harvard Business Review, surveyed 50 chief executives of global companies. They found hiring practices to be “disturbingly vague . . . relying heavily on subjective personal preferences or on largely unquestioned organisational traditions often based on false assumptions.” Mr Sheridan believes that good, competency-based interview questions — as opposed to CVs — will test for attitude and commercial acumen, now ranked above technical ability by many senior recruiters.

6 Take a creative approach
In turbulent times, employees are wary of leaving. Ms Hardman asked: “Can you do something to get through to the people who are sitting tight?” In-house referrals are a good bet, Mr Woollard said. “Employees won’t refer someone unless they think they can do the job.” Mr Fernández-Aráoz advised utilising business networks: “Leads will come from suppliers, customers, board members . . . consultants [and] industry associates.”

7 Don’t ignore your own people
When cutting costs and making redundancies, it is easy to damage engagement, harming the brand. “Some employers have a cavalier attitude that people aren’t going to jump ship. The bright ones will back themselves and go anyway,” Ms Hardman said. Mr Woollard said: “Organisations need to focus on motivating their current workforce first. You could be bringing in staff and finding that morale is very low.”

8 Sell the reality
“An ongoing mistake is to oversell the company and the job,” Mr Woollard said. He gave the example of oil companies positioning themselves as bastions of sustainable energy. “That may not be the reality. Unrealised expectations are a key reason for people leaving.”

9 Articulate the message Ms Winterflood said: “Tapping into that top talent is still tough. You have got to have a good proposition and articulate it in order to get through to the right people.” Recruiters cannot expect to pick up a bargain at a high level. “There are always skills that you need to pay a premium for.”

10 Integrate to retain
Many firms take no steps at all to ensure that new employees are integrated, according to the HBR research, while a 2007 survey by Novations Group found that one third of employers lost between 10 per cent and 25 per cent of new employees within the first year. According to Ms Hardman: “Look at all aspects of the onboarding process, making sure that you haven’t set recruits up to fail.”

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