We've recently gone through a long hiring process, hiring temps then hiring for a full-time permanent position. We'd like to share some of what we've learned (or already knew but somehow forgot.)
Tips to help you find the next great candidate:
Take your time. While you may want someone to fill a gap as quickly as possible, hiring someone based on a recommendation, a phone call and one in-person interview can result in a long-term challenge. Once you've hired someone, it's difficult to remove them if they aren't a good fit. - Understand that what you want isn’t necessarily what you need. Defining the position and listing all the tasks and responsibilities you want to give a new hire probably feels like the easy part. However, recruiters say that companies frequently don’t really understand what they actually need. Hiring managers can get caught up looking for candidate pedigree, industry experience, and specific systems knowledge. They errantly weed out candidates who are eager to learn, have tremendous work ethic, and whose skills would complement those of other employees. You want to avoid hiring someone who looks great on paper, but doesn't fit your culture or is unable to contribute fully to your team.
- Focus on hiring someone who will be an overall good fit with the culture of your team and your organization as a whole. Of course, you need to be able to recognize and communicate characteristics of your culture. How do you operate as a group? What makes your team or organization unique? Are you trying to change your culture? Most employees leave or fail because their manager or environment made them uncomfortable. Even the finest skills will be wasted if the person to whom they belong doesn’t mesh with others and leaves – whether by your choice or not.
- Don’t assume there’s only one type of person who can do the job. At Talent Gear, we sometimes hear that to be good in sales (or accounting, or a C-level role) there is a specific personality style required. There is little evidence to support those assertions, beyond findings that conscientious, agreeable and emotionally stable people tend to be more successful at work.
- Remember that all of us have biases. Blind screening (removing names and addresses from resumes or applications) is always a good idea. Structured interviews in which every candidate is asked the same question by the same person also helps, as can using a standard scorecard for traits, experience and qualitification.
We found that having several people interview a candidate gave us much more perspective on the candidates. The reality is that people gravitate to people with whom they identify – those who look and act like they do. It is still prevalent in society to overlook great candidates based on bias – sometimes subconsciously and sometimes not.
- Use additional resources to identify not just skills, but also personality traits and applicant interests that are a good fit for the position and with your organization. Don't rely on your instincts. There are job selection tools that can assist with fine-tuning your final pool of applicants. Tools like PXT Select™ provide performance models from which you can select one that closely matches your open position. After having candidates complete the assessment, you can see which candidates are closest to the model. This creates a standard scorecard for you. As with any assessment, selection assessments should only be used as a data point in your hiring process – not as the basis for your selection.
- Finally, give yourself a break. Hiring isn’t easy. Finding just the right person to become a valued contributor to your team and organization takes time, patience, and luck. Once you've made your hire, you can increase your odds of keeping them by doing a good job of onboarding. Some candidate selection tools like PXT Select offer reports that can help with that, too. Be sure to take advantage of all resources available to you.