The team’s and the individual member’s goals must be aligned, and this results in a synergic output that is mutually beneficial.
The same is true when your company and the new hire are working together. Again, their goals should match; the new candidate should be able to fit into the company’s unique work culture or understand what you are trying to do.
Moreover, before hiring someone, you should also estimate how this new hire will fit in the team they are going to work with.
All these are valid questions that must be answered for a long-term trusted relationship between you and your new hire. But, first, you need to have an idea of the perfect candidate and then judge them on that.
The process of simply judging someone based on their CVs, like mentioned earlier, is waning away, and rightfully so because a candidate might be a good fit on paper, but if their persona does not match with your brand, then it won’t work out.
Persona being the driving word here.
But then one might ask, what exactly is a candidate persona?
What is a Candidate Persona?
It is simply a representation of your ideal candidate that is formed by defining what characteristics they should have, the skills they should possess, and the traits they should exhibit while working. All these factors make up your ideal candidate and its persona.
Now that you have understood the why of it let’s understand the how.
How to Create a Candidate Persona?
There are three important aspects that you must focus on while creating a candidate persona that ensures accuracy:
- Research
- Identifying trends
- Creating persona stories
Step 1: Research
Research forms the foundation of your entire process. Your candidate persona must be based on data and not assumptions or gut feelings. This is the information age, and the more accurate information you have, the better the results are.
The best way to do your research and the eventual creation of the candidate persona is to survey your existing employees to understand them. This is because people who work for your company are the ones who have those skills and show those traits that you’d look for in the candidates.
Your questions should range from targets and interests to motivation. The answers to these questions must tell you what an ideal candidate needs to succeed at your company.
Here are some questions that can get you started as regards communicating with the stakeholders:
- How does your teamwork, and how will the new hire fit in?
- What skills are you looking for?
- What experience level are you looking for? Would you be reluctant to work with a fresher?
- What qualifications are you looking for?
- What goals do you think the new hire must have? What must be their aspirations?
The answers to these questions will help you get started toward creating the ideal candidate persona. Of course, you must adapt and improvise, keeping your brand and team in mind.
Step 2: Look For Trends in the Data Collected
This is extremely important when creating more than one persona, and you may be able to pinpoint trends and common factors that personas should have for different roles.
The one question that arises is that how many of these personas are you looking for? How many should you look for?
The answer is simple—depending on your needs. Spotting trends simplifies this process and creates a common foundation on which you build further.
Step 3: Persona Stories
The final step in creating your own candidate persona is to write persona stories.
It’s here that your research and trends come together, creating a story that defines your ideal candidate persona.
Bonus: Candidate Persona Template
A candidate persona is a fictional representation of your ideal candidate, based on data and an educated guess about their goals, dreams, and background.
You can create a persona using information gathered from different sources and it will help you:
- Better understand past, present, and future employees
- Create more effective talent acquisition content.
- Better attract and convert candidates.
We made a template to help you speed things up and get you exactly what you want. Simply answer the questions and create your own ideal candidate persona.
You can also download the Candidate Persona Template in Google Sheet.
Conclusion
It must be every company’s goal to ensure that its teams work efficiently to find what they are looking for in a candidate, and the best way to go about it is through these candidate personas.
