Hiring the right people for your organization can be a challenging and time-consuming undertaking. You want employees who can handle their responsibilities well and who are the right fit for your company culture and current workforce. Hiring the wrong candidates can be costly, while bringing the right people on board can pay big dividends, including increasing productivity, improving morale and enhancing your company’s growth and success.
The following recruiting tips from a variety of resources will hopefully guide your hiring process and help you find the right people for your job openings almost every time:
Define the job in detail before starting the hiring process.
HR and management consultant Susan M. Heathfield (Top 10 Tips for Hiring the Right Employee—Every Time) suggests starting the hiring process with a job analysis, which enables you to collect information about the duties, responsibilities, necessary skills, desired outcomes and work environment of a particular job. The information from the job analysis is fundamental to developing a detailed job description, which helps you plan your recruiting strategy for hiring the right employee.
Assemble a team to plan your recruiting strategy.
Ask the hiring manager and key employees involved in the hiring process to develop a recruiting plan based on the job description. Teams that have worked together frequently on recruiting can often complete this step via email. Elements of a recruiting plan could include soliciting internal referrals, working with a recruiter who specializes in a field related to the job opening or starting a candidate as a contractor to see how the person fits with the current team.
Tap into your network.
If you haven’t already, create an employee referral program and offer incentives to encourage your employees to refer friends, colleagues or former co-workers. Ask your colleagues and others in your professional network if they are aware of someone with the specific qualifications you are seeking. The people you find through employee referrals or personal recommendations will likely have a better idea of what to expect from the job and your company, increasing your odds of finding the right candidates to fill your job openings.
Make the most of the interview process.
Ask both open-ended and detailed questions. How candidates respond to open-ended questions can help you get a sense of their personality and attitude, while more detailed and precise questions can help reveal both their technical and soft skills. Also, encourage candidates to ask questions to help you gauge how they are approaching this opportunity and to reveal what they know about your company and the role they would be filling.
Utilize reference checks.
Reference checks provide valuable insight into what a candidate is really like to work within a professional setting. Entrepreneur Susan Wilson Solovic (How to Hire the Right Person for the Job) strongly advises that you never rely on your instincts alone when judging potential employees.
Look for diversity when you hire.
The more points of view and perspectives you have, the more adaptable and innovative your company will be. WorkBright blogger Derek Lennon (How to hire the right person almost every time) advises that it may be helpful to identify where your team might need a boost (i.e., creative problem solving, strategizing, seeing the big picture, etc.) and seek out candidates that can demonstrate experience in those categories.
Place a premium on attitude and character.
“While most companies tend to focus on hard credentials and other ‘measurables’ when evaluating potential hires, there is nothing more important than something deeply intangible: a candidate’s attitude,” says Adam Mendler of the Young Entrepreneur Council (YEC), an invitation-only organization comprised of the world’s most promising young entrepreneurs (You Can Thank Us Later -12 Tips for Hiring the Right Person). Mendler believes that a person with a winning, can-do attitude will not only find a way to get his or her work done well, but will uplift the rest of the team, and in turn, your business.
Be Patient.
If you can’t find the right person for the job, try to pause and perhaps reassess your hiring strategies. Even if you need a person right away, it’s better to hold out for the right candidate. A hasty hire has a higher probability of backfiring.
While finding the right candidates to fill job openings can be one of the most challenging aspects of managing a company, it can also be one of the most rewarding. Hiring the right people can bring the satisfaction of seeing employees develop and flourish in their roles and result in greater growth and success for your organization.
