An extended lockdown has forced us all to stay at our homes. All thanks to the coronavirus. Undoubtedly the COVID 19 outbreak has successfully ensured that our lives remain in a state of limbo. Especially for the professionals in the recruiting industry, this lockdown has brought upon a number of challenges. But in these challenging times, the most important thing for a recruiter is not to lose the zest to learn. This pandemic is the perfect opportunity to rethink strategies, realign priorities, and upskill yourselves. But how? The best way to learn and grow perspective is to read books. In this article, we have carefully curated a list of 10 best recruitment books to read during this lockdown that can help recruiters to remain top class in their game.
“A book is a garden, an orchard, a storehouse, a party, a company, by the way, a counselor, a multitude of counselors.”
– Charles Baudelaire
Recruitment is tougher in these challenging situations. If you want to dominate the hiring competition, you need to stay at the top of the game. So, the latest recruitment trends and best practices are a must. This lockdown is the perfect opportunity to go back to old school learning, which is, reading books! Good books that teach you the art of recruitment and the ins and outs of the complete recruitment process are a much better option than some expensive online courses. You not only improve your skills tremendously but also gain new perspectives. So, to give you a headstart with your recruitment decisions, we have handpicked a list of 10 best recruitment books to read during this lockdown.
WHO: The A Method For Hiring
Authors- Geoff Smart and Randy Street
Why should you read this book? This book was published back in 2008 by Geoff Smart and Randy Street and has been listed 10 out of 20 times. The title of this book may seem a little weird to you at first, but this book contains great insights for recruiters and hiring managers. This book is all about ”who” and not ”what”, ”who” are the people you hire to make ”what” decisions. This book is a result of hours of interviews with billionaires and CEOs about their hiring experiences and tips. All of that, condensed into one single, precise book.
“We define an A Player this way: a candidate who has at least a 90 percent chance of achieving a set of outcomes that only the top 10 percent of possible candidates could achieve.”
― Geoff Smart, Who: The A Method for Hiring
WORK RULES!: Insights from Inside Google That Will Transform How You Live and Lead
Author- Laszlo Bock
Why should you read this book? This book is a perfect read for companies who are aspiring to become big, as big as Google. This book basically revolves around the whole recruiting and workplace strategies of Google. Laszlo Bock reveals in this book why Google is consistently rated as one of the top places to work and as a result, why it is the dream company of talented individuals. Bock also provides teaching experience from a range of industries based on behavioral economics and human psychology.
”We spend more time working than doing anything else in life. It’s not right that the experience of work should be so demotivating and dehumanizing”
― Laszlo Bock
Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap… and Others Don’t
Authors- Jim Collins
Why should you read this book? Although this book isn’t directly related to recruiting, it is a must-read for all the people who want to know how companies succeed. This information is useful to recruiters too because a recruiter is involved in finding people who lead an organization to success. In this book, Jim Collins, who is a former faculty member at the Stanford Graduate school of Business, highlights the factors that transform good companies into great ones. This book is a result of intense research using tough benchmarks.
“Greatness is not a function of circumstance. Greatness, it turns out, is largely a matter of conscious choice, and discipline.”
― Jim Collins, Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap… and Others Don’t
Moneyball: The Art of Winning an Unfair Game
Author- Michael Lewis
Why should you read this book? As you can guess by its cover, yes this book is about baseball. This book portrays how the Oakland A’s turned one of the lowest budgets in Major League Baseball into a team of amazing players. From a recruitment perspective, this shows the power of smart recruiting.
“Managers tend to pick a strategy that is the least likely to fail, rather then to pick a strategy that is most efficient”
― Michael Lewis, Moneyball: The Art of Winning an Unfair Game ”
Remote: Office Not Required
Author- Jason Fried and David Heinemeier
Why you should read this book? During this time of crisis, more and more companies are recruiting remotely. Even the current employees are working from home. In most cases, the whole work from home arrangement has been a success and as a result, beneficial too. So, a recruiter needs to understand this trend and make amends. This book is the perfect guide for recruiters and hiring managers who are willing to upscale their knowledge in remote hiring and work environments.
“you’d be amazed how much quality collective thought can be captured using two simple tools: a voice connection and a shared screen.”
― Jason Fried, Remote: Office Not Required
Hire With Your Head: Using Performance-Based Hiring to Build Great Teams
Author- Lou Adler
Why you should read this book? Packed with fresh case studies from leading companies this book introduces you to the performance-based hiring system and is also fully updated to cover all the recent developments in online hiring and other new technologies in the field. So, this is a godly book for every manager who wishes to hire the right person every time.
“Good people always ask good questions.”
― Lou Adler, The Essential Guide for Hiring & Getting Hired
Social-media recruitment
Author- Andy Headworth
Why you should read this book? This book contains a series of easy-to-follow chapters of social media recruitment that covers the essentials of hiring from head to toe. The recruitment landscape is continuously evolving and as a result, recruiters need different methods to attract talent and this book explains why and how social media can bey a key channel to hire the best talents.
“If your content is boring then people are not going to read it and engage with you.”
― Andy Headworth, Social Media Recruitment: How to Successfully Integrate Social Media into Recruitment Strategy
How To Spot A Liar
Author- Gregory Hartley & Maryann Karinch
Why you should read this book? Being Sherlock might be tough but If you’re ever been lied to by someone around you then you could tell that they are lying by just listening to them after reading this book. In recruitment too, a professional comes across many such situations where the candidate may be lying about his skills. So, this book helps in how to know what’s going on and the way of achieving the upper hand in such situations.
Hiring Success: How Visionary CEOs Compete for the Best Talent
Author- Jerome Ternynck
Why you should read this book? Hiring top talents and the right people is always the top priority of the CEO’s and yet the majority ends up hiring the incorrect people. In this book, helping people to gain the ability to attract, select, and hire the best talent ie elaborated. This is a must-read book packed with 30 years of learning and differentiated recruiting strategies in hiring success by Jerome Ternynck.
Hiring For Attitude: A Revolutionary Approach To Recruiting And Selecting People With Both Tremendous Skills and Superb Attitude
Author– Mark Murphy
Why you should read this book? A hiring attitude that fits your culture is something that can make your employees give 100% effort and, as a result, turn customers into raving fans. But, if hired otherwise can set your company apart from the competition. This is a must-read book that includes case studies from the biggest companies that drive great up-shots by hiring for attitude.