Recruitment round-up: top 10 tools to help with your recruitment activity

Skills for Care provides a range of information to support social care employers with their recruitment activity. We’ve rounded up ten of our top tools and resources to support you with your recruitment processes. Have a look below at what we offer and how this can help you to find, hire, and on-board new staff.

1) Values and behaviours framework

Underpinning all your recruitment activity within social care, should be your values. Values-based recruitment means recruiting people who match with your organisation’s core values, and prioritising these values over other factors such as previous experience.

When conducting applications and interviews, you should ask questions or prepare tasks which assess for values.

In order to utilise values-based recruitment, you need to have a clear understanding of what your values are, so you know what values to look for from candidates. Our values and behaviours framework guidance can help you to create a values and behaviours framework for your organisation if you don’t already have one or can be used to refine and develop existing values framework you have in place.

Download the framework.

2) Workforce planning and development tool

Our ‘Workforce planning and development tool’ was created in partnership with Oxfordshire County Council and has been developed to help care organisations plan for and implement a new workforce development plan.

The tool will ask you questions about your organisation and will use your answers to assess the strengths and weaknesses of your workforce and provide recommendations for a workforce plan to strengthen your team.

The tool covers nine sections including organisational culture, learning and development, succession planning, and more. You can choose whether to complete just one section, a selection of sections, or all nine sections.

Explore the tool.

3) Recruitment cost calculator

Our ‘Calculating the cost of recruitment’ tool is a good starting point for creating a recruitment budget, looking not only at monetary costs but also time and resources.

The template serves as a helpful reminder of each element you’ll need to consider within your time and cost budget, including advertising, interviewing, and training up new staff, and allows you to assess where time and money is being spent, and where it’s working most effectively.

Using the template, you can calculate the cost of recruitment activity over the past 12-months and forecast what the cost of recruitment would be over the next five years. You can use this data to assess where your time and money is best spent on recruitment and what budget you’re able to invest.

View the template.

4) Job description template

When recruiting a new team member, a key step is creating a job description for the new role.

This not only serves as an important part of the recruitment process - allowing candidates to see what the role involves and whether they’d be a good fit and allowing you to know what you’re looking for from a candidate - but is also important in setting out the tasks and expectations of the successful candidate once they join your team.

We have a template available to help you to create your job description and ensure that values are a core element of this. This can be done by listing upkeeping your organisational values as part of the duties of the job and including a person specification which sets out the key values you’re looking for.

See the template.

5) Job advert template

Like the job description, creating the job advert is also an important part of the recruitment process and is key in outlining the values you’re looking for from the successful candidate.

It’s a good idea to think a little bit outside of the box when it comes to creating your job advert – you don’t need to be formal, instead aim to be friendly and approachable to someone who may be new to working in care but may have all the values you’re looking for.

Outline the values you’re looking for in your job advert and ask if they share these. If experience isn’t necessary, make sure to highlight that.

You can find more tips on how to create a values-based job advert with our template.

Download the template.

6) Guide to targeting demographics

Our guide on effective ways of communicating to target demographics helps you to consider who you’re trying to reach with your job advert, the people who are most likely to work in care and match the values of your organisation, and how you can target these specific groups of people.

This covers both where you communicate your job vacancy, and how you communicate it and the language that you use.

Our guide shares tips such as what channels to use to reach people from different groups and what elements of the role to highlight to different groups of people, for example rewarding work or flexible working.

Download the guide.

7) Guide to virtual recruitment

The pandemic meant that recruitment turned virtual. As we start to move past the peak of the pandemic, many organisations may decide to continue with virtual recruitment either as a continued covid precaution, or simply because of the greater flexibility which virtual recruitment allows.

Our distance recruitment tips cover information from how to choose what technology to use, to how to prepare for the interview and how to help the candidate prepare for the unique elements of a virtual interview.

Check out the guide.

8) A question of care

‘A question of care: a career for you?’ is a great tool for assessing candidates’ values and identifying candidates who match the values needed to work in care and at your organisation.

The tool is an interactive video challenge where candidates are asked how they would react in different scenarios. At the end of the challenge the candidate is provided with a report detailing whether they display the values needed for a career in care.

This is a useful tool to use as part of the application process, allowing you and the candidate to discuss the results together at interview.

Discover the challenge.

9) Care Certificate

The Care Certificate should be built into the induction process for anyone new to care, as the skills learned through completion of the certificate are considered essential for everyone working in care.

The Care Certificate is an agreed set of standards which outline the knowledge, skills and behaviours expected of different roles in social care.

Our information on the Care Certificate sets out why this is important and how it can be used as part of your training for new staff.

Find out about the Care Certificate.

10) Rapid induction training

The rapid induction training programme covers the essential training which all people new to care must have as part of their induction.

This covers elements such as assisting and moving people, basic first aid, and safeguarding adults.

We have information about what’s included in the programme and how you can access the training through your Skills for Care Adult Social Care Workforce Data Set (ASC-WDS) account.

Find out more about essential training.

Have a look at more recruitment resources on our #RecruitmentReady spotlight page.

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