This past year has been weird. Back in March of 2020, hiring slowed way down, and we lost a lot of colleagues because none of us knew what was next. How could anybody accurately predict how the economy would react in the short or long term in light of everything? A year and some months later, and we’ve flipped to clamoring for candidates to staff back up as quickly as possible—and truth be told, it is proving hard to find enough!

I’m sure you’re all doing your due diligence—posting those jobs, offering signing bonuses, sending out text campaigns, giving your current employees raised incentives to bring in their friends and connections.

But what have we not considered?

Corporate culture is the lifeblood of a company, it’s who you are. Crafting a strong corporate culture can be the difference in a company’s survival. An employee will work harder and fight for a company if they believe that that company will fight for them and if they believe in the organization as a whole. But where does corporate culture begin? That answer is simpler than most companies make it, recruiting. Recruiting is the seed from which your corporate culture grows and that includes how you treat candidates throughout the hiring process.