In life, as in business, making mistakes is unavoidable, but some are definitely more costly than others. Read on to find out how you keep on hiring the people you need and stop mistaking the ones you don’t want for the ones you do.
All common hiring “fatalities” come from the practical fact that when you decide to add new personnel, you already need them “yesterday”. From that moment on, the pressure to expedite the process builds and builds, until you quickly succumb to saying “Ok, You’re hired” to the one you’ll probably end up firing, loosing precious time, a lot of resources and making a big budget hole in the meantime.
Laking a formal process
It is vital to create a committee, map out the entire hiring process and set from the start ample time for recruiting, which include thorough selection, interviewing, analysis and negotiation. The lack of process will most certainly make the headhunting last longer, while unwanted candidates slip through the cracks.
Not knowing accurately the role for the hiring position
Recruitment should start no sooner than the moment you have detailed information about the role, responsibilities, working relationships with other roles within and outside the company, the results and milestones needed to be achieved.
Sticking long and hard to the corporate culture
I’ve seen many situations when corporate culture and fit blinds the hiring managers to the point of being unable to assess candidates objectively. While being likeable is a nice and beneficial quality, the goal should always be hiring the most competent employee.
Not asking for references
Commonly, recruiters ask for one supervisor reference, don’t take time to prepare questions for those referees and treat in general this part of the recruiting with little regard. As I told you a few weeks ago, in “Hiring the Doers” (link: http://www.qtc.ro/hiring-doers/ ), aside from references on social media for professionals, like LinkedIn, you should check at least three live references: two past managers and one peer. Asking comparable questions to those formerly addressed to the candidate should be a good start, as you should look for similar answers. While open questions like “times when the candidate over exceeded expectations”, should form the basis for passionate and positive answers, otherwise it’s not a good sign at all. Anybody gives references who will speak favourably of them, and if unattached is the best that they can show about your candidate, then… no great things really happened with him/her being there.
Counting on job post only
Working your network and enrolling advocates who can help you grow your candidate pool will take you far beyond the list of people who apply on the job boards. Why not extend “the best candidate who applied to the announcement” to “the best candidate I could have”. Many of the ones you truly want are not necessarily looking for a job, but might be interested in what you have to offer.
If you set the time right, prepare the process carefully and pay attention to finding what you need in a candidate, you’ll have no trouble making a success with each hiring.
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