Key To Successful Hiring
Introduction
Employees are the core of the success of a company. So, when hiring someone to work at your company, it makes sense to want the best. However, finding motivated, loyal and happy workers is one of the biggest challenges in business. As a company manager, hiring decisions will be as significant as any other management decision, such as budget approvals etc.
Most companies will have specific procedures for the hiring process. Some companies will have simple, straightforward procedures, while others, mostly large corporations, will have complex procedures. The important thing is to ensure your adopted procedure is efficient enough to pick out the best candidates and due diligence is undertaken.
This article will provide factors that guide your decisions in a successful hiring process regardless of the type of industry or size of the company.
Factors to consider for successful hiring
Many factors guide you in making sure the best talent is recruited. There are a lot of people who are hired without consideration of some factors and fail to perform at the required level. The last thing you want in your company is an incapable and unhappy employee and consequently unhappy clients. This would be detrimental to your business. However, to ensure your hiring process is successful, the following factors are helpful.
Know what you are looking for
Before you begin recruiting, you need to know what you are looking for. What kind of skills do they have? What kind of traits should they have? Do they have the required experience or not? If so, how much experience? How would you want your team to operate and perform under them?
What is your company’s culture like, and how does the company want it to be represented to clients and other employees. You should be prepared to test and vet all these requirements for successful hiring. Such preparation always translates to success in hiring.
Pipeline talent
Always be actively prospecting candidates. You can identify prospective candidates during business meetings, networks and chance encounters. This allows you to have prospective talent in the “pipeline”, and should a befitting opening present itself in the future; you can recruit them. Pipelining talent reduces recruitment time and allows you to focus more on the candidate’s suitability in your hiring process.
Generate referrals
You can scout talent from your network. If you determine which people in your social circle can perform roles in your company, you are able to identify candidates who can be vouched for or recommended as credible individuals. Referrals are great sources of valuable prospects. You can cultivate referrals from current employees, past employers and peers within the industry.
Have well-written job descriptions
The description of the job position offered should be clear and relevant to the requirements of the role and the unique expectations of the company. This will allow you to attract candidates who can thrive in that environment. Don’t crowd the job descriptions with ambiguity. Successful hiring ought to be preceded by well-written job descriptions. Always characterize your idea of a qualified candidate and develop a job description that targets their interest.
Improve recruiter and hiring manager interactions
Recruitment is a two-way partnership, and keen communication and solid rapport between the hiring manager and candidate helps in creating a successful hiring process. Find ways to improve this interaction, as most qualified candidates will want to feel valued from the onset.
Communicate timely with applicants
You should be prompt and responsive in communicating with candidates. Practice timely communication as you expect them to. To make them feel valued, anticipate their queries, update them on requests, and provide feedback as soon as possible.
And even if you don’t want to hire them, it is a good idea to get it out of the way up front so that they know their situation. Candidates are less likely to recommend your products and services if they do not approve of how you treat job applicants.
Seek counsel
It is always a good idea to seek advice from successful industry and non-industry recruiters. A third-party opinion will be able to see the picture more clearly and give constructive feedback on what is working and what needs to be improved in your hiring process. They will also highlight challenges you should expect to have successful hiring procedures.
Perform quality assessment
Assess candidates for their level of expertise, personality and culture fit. To find the best candidates, you need to perform quality assessments in interviews. This includes a wide range of things like using opportunity profiles that offer careers rather than job descriptions that offer jobs. This way, you don’t give away too much of what exists in the job description and lose control of the interview.
Be in control of the interview, ask objective and prudent questions, utilize scorecards and listen extensively. Develop your assessments such that they evaluate IQ (intelligence quotient), WQ (wisdom quotient) and EQ (emotional quotient).
Screen efficiently
Efficient screening is vital for successful hiring. Screening is the process of filtering or examining candidates according to a set of predetermined criteria to see if they are appropriate for your company.
Since you will have to review lots of applications, it is suggested to have a screening system that is fast, efficient and accessible from anywhere (automation). If the screening of the applications is effective, you will be able to focus on several applications that are most suitable for your company.
Conduct optimized and structured interviews
Your hiring process should have a well-defined and rational structure that collects data that can be used to rate candidates and differentiate equally qualified candidates. Note that you will be conducting multiple interviews, and keeping track of each interaction would be difficult without a suitable structure, and may prolong the process and result in loss of gathered key points.
You can define a structure for interviewers to record notes and use scorecards. As you structure your interviews, ensure your candidates are talking freely, ask questions, listen actively and ask related follow-up questions. Be aware as sometimes it is easy to get too carried away with seeking out information you want and forget about gathering the information you need.
Clear evaluation criteria
You should have an ideal candidate in mind that represents all the positive attributes you need in a suitable employee. While the best candidate will rarely meet the criteria to the full extent, each candidate’s score on each criterion can be used to grade and contrast them with the rest. These criteria should be well-defined and objective to fit the role and company.
Central applicant tracking system
With a centralized system that can track applicants across different channels, you can easily access important information related to each candidate. You can also record notes and save scorecards of candidates in the system. This way, you will have accurate and up-to-date information on each applicant. This information can be referenced for future hiring and keeping in touch with potentially befitting candidates.
Consider team approach for hiring efficiently
Successful hiring is often a collaborative effort. You can recruit a team of experts with different backgrounds and skill sets to screen applicants, schedule interviews, conduct interviews, and record notes. They can exchange notes and offer their input when making the selection decisions.
A system that allows each team member to record their notes and makes them available to other members can be put in place to streamline the process. This promotes quick and efficient hiring.
Employer branding
Employer branding is the practice of creating an image of your company that attracts the best candidates. You can achieve this by branding effectively on your company’s website. This is the main place potential candidates will go to learn what your company represents and information about job openings, etc.
A well-branded career website will spark interest in high-quality candidates. If you can have high-quality candidates interview for you, you are bound to have successful hiring. You should update the website often so as not to mislead candidates.
Keep it simple
Keep the recruiting process simple so as not to overwork your recruiters. The process should be straightforward, logical and easy to follow.
Overworked and stressed recruiters and interviewers may find it difficult to keep track of recruitment paperwork, lose focus, have lowered sense of objectivity, and become lenient. This lowers the success rate of your hiring process as you end up with less qualified candidates due to leniency. If a step such as scheduling or tracking documents can be automated, consider automating it.
Efficient data analytics
Employers can get a good return on investment through efficient data analytics. Efficient data analytics require the collection of relevant. This way, you should apply data gathering techniques to determine which candidate is the best fit for the job through interviews, etc.
This data can be used to streamline your hiring process by identifying delays and looming challenges to find solutions, whether you need more or less screening interviews or gaining access to a wider pool of suitable candidates. Data analytics is an efficient method of developing a workflow that best suits your business requirements and model.
Present the offer and close with the candidates
You should have a clear offer package that is prominently presented to the candidates when the time is right. An offer is formal verbal or written communication indicating an employer’s willingness to hire the respective candidate for employment. Design an offer that appeals to the candidate’s interests. A good offer is one that meets the expectations and requirements of both parties.
When making an offer, consider factors such as potential growth opportunities, location, description of the role and total compensation package, which includes salary, holiday allowance and other benefits. After evaluating the offer, you should aim to close the candidate after you have determined that they are the best fit for the position.
Make the offer in person and show enthusiasm. Make sure you create an environment where the candidate can sign the contract on-site or within 24 hours. If you want your new hire to start as soon as possible, advise them on how to reject counteroffers from other pursuers and lawfully resign from their current job within 48 hours.
Perform reference checks
Reference checks are essentially follow-up calls on your potential candidates’ previous employers. Most candidates won’t include it in their applications. Therefore, request this information during interviews. In the initial interview, identify the names of previous employers and ask for their contact info in the final stages of interviewing. References are used to verify the candidate’s claims. Misleading claims should be taken as red flags.
Get the Pre-Employment Background Check Authorization Form signed by the potential employee
Before hiring a new employee, you should ensure that the candidate has gone through all required background checks. Pre-employment background checks are a form of investigation of an individual’s personal and public records. These background checks include employment history, criminal records, credit history, medical history and work authorization checks.
You should, however, have the candidate fill out and sign a pre-employment background check authorization form before conducting these background checks. This form gives you consent to legally access and requests the candidate’s information from the associated authorities. Information gathered from these background checks is used to determine if the candidate is eligible to be a reliable employee.
Onboard new hires
Onboarding is a company-wide process that is used to welcome new employees. Onboarding processes and activities vary depending on the nature of the business. The onboarding process should include acclimatization activities in the organization such as orientation, training and mentoring.
Remember that the candidates will evaluate their role and company during probation. If they are not valued, they may choose to quit, which would render successful hiring futile. New hires should be adequately supported if you want to retain the talent you worked so hard to acquire.
Conclusion
By complying with the factors discussed above and best practices for successful hiring recruitment, you are bound to have a high success rate with your company’s hiring process. Note that employers don’t follow a fixed recruitment procedure.
Therefore, you need to design a procedure that identifies and secures qualified candidates for your company. The hiring process determines the qualities of employees your company hires and, consequently, performance and success.
