Back to Blog4 Tips to Create an Ideal Candidate Persona
What is your ideal candidate persona? Most companies don’t have one, but it is a valuation tool that can be used to improve your hiring process.
What Is an Ideal Candidate Persona?
Your ideal candidate persona is a description of the perfect job candidate for a specific role. It is a description of the characteristics, skills, experience, morals, and other factors that are relevant to a job.
When you have a detailed understanding of the type of person you are looking to hire, it can help you develop a stronger recruiting strategy. It will be the basis for writing your job descriptions, shaping the questions you’ll ask during the interview, and help you better identify the right candidate when you meet them. Think of it as a type of checklist you can use to compare candidates against.
How to Create an Ideal Candidate Persona
Looking for ideas to create an ideal candidate persona? Check out these tips from Toronto recruiter:
- Outline commonality among top candidates: What do top performers in your industry have in common? Do they have specific skills, experience, or backgrounds that have helped them excel? Use your findings to help you hire better in the future.
- Get input internally: It’s important to get input from a diverse collection of people within your organization from the top down. Get input from others about what they think are the top skills and characteristics of top performers.
- Look at your data: Take a look at your hiring data. What does it tell you? Look at the top performers within your organization. Do they have commonalities? What is it about the hires in your company that have made them successful? Your recurring data could tell you a lot about the types of people who best fit within your organization.
- Ask your employees: Who knows what it takes to be successful in a role better than your top-performing employees? Ask them why they were drawn to your company and ask them about how they go about being successful.
Use the data you collect to build a vision of your ideal candidate. Outline top qualities, skills, experience, and other things you are looking for when hiring. Use your persona and compare it to each candidate you interview.
Get More Recruitment Advice From Toronto Recruiters
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5 Tips to Close a Top Job Candidate Who Has Multiple Job Offers
Top Reasons Why Candidates Decline Job Offers, Besides Money
IQ PARTNERS is an Executive Search & Recruitment firm supporting clients across the country. We help companies hire better, hire less & retain more. We have specialist teams of recruiters in Executive Search / Board & C-Suite, Technology, Media, Digital & Marketing, Accounting & Finance, Financial Services & Insurance, Cannabis, Startup, Data Science, Consumer, eCommerce & Retail, Operations & HR, Manufacturing, Supply Chain & Engineering, Legal & Professional Services, Pharmaceutical & Life Sciences, Non-Profit & Sustainability, and Sales. IQ PARTNERS has its head office in Toronto and operates internationally via Aravati Global Search Network. Click here to view current job openings and to register with us.
Ross Campbell
Ross Campbell is a Partner and Practice Lead, Financial Services & Insurance with IQ PARTNERS. Celebrating over 10 years of management consulting experience in executive search, recruitment, and training in Canadian financial services and insurance companies, Ross thrives on the belief that business can be done significantly better by investing in the right people.
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