Wouldn’t it be awesome if you had a 100% chance of finding the RIGHT employee for the job every time you posted an offer? Awesome’s not the word: utopia might be more appropriate. That being said, there are certain things you can (and must) do if you want to try and find the right person, for the right job, in the right company and avoid the costs associated with high turnover and bad hires!
But don’t feel discouraged; I have gathered 13 easy tips that will make you reach HR Nirvana in no time.
1 – Write Accurate Job Descriptions
If you want to get the right person for the job, you need to know what you’re looking for, and how to convey that message to the candidate. If you’re not clear about what you want, you can forget about getting resumes that fit your needs!
Write a job description that has clear objectives, requirements, and responsibilities. But at the same time, remain specific, straight-to-the-point, and unique.
Easier said than done, right?
2 – Post Jobs at the Right Place to Get the Right Candidates
Having a great job description is only the first thing to do to hire the right candidates. You need to post those job offers at the right places and on the right platforms!
Depending on the job itself, think either in terms of
- Social recruiting
- Job Sites / Talent Acquisition Platforms / Aggregators
- Niche Job Boards and Sites
- University Career Boards
- Referrals from current employees
The list is endless: just make sure you pick the right one to get the right candidates!
3 – Go Beyond the Resume
A resume is often a candidate’s FIRST “point-of-contact”. But nowadays, it can’t stand on its own.
There are so many things to consider other than experience: education, personality, references, attitude, fit, energy, interests, etc.
Plus: I like to think resumes are like profile pictures. You wouldn’t upload your picture on a day where you have a huge zit on your nose, and where your eyes have bags under them, right? You pick and choose the best aspect of yourself to reveal to others.
Resumes are the same: they’re not necessarily what-you-see-is-what-you-get (WYSIWYG, in our jargon!)
4 – Consider a Candidate’s Personality as it relates to the Job
Just like you need to know what you’re looking for when you write your job description, you need to know what you’re looking for regarding personality at work!
Why ask for a “results-oriented”, “meticulous and organised” or “able to work under pressure” in your job requirements if you can’t assess those specific traits? You can verify almost everything on a resume by asking the candidate:
- to show you his/her school degree
- info about their previous jobs to check references
- to elaborate on their interests
So why not do the same with those personality traits that were so essential to you, you just HAD to write them on the job offer?
With a Job-Fit Assessment, you can!
5 – Assess or define your company culture
What comes to mind when you read “Company Culture”? Probably something along the lines of “company’s beliefs, working methods, ethics, social engagement, values, the well-being of its employees, quality of customer service, working environment, dress code”.
If you want to hire the right employee, you need to make sure they will fit in with the company culture as well as with the job. Assess your organisational culture to know exactly what kind of person will be a good fit.
6 – Don’t Forget Your Other Employees
I always like to think there are three kinds of fit that make an employee a great hire. We’ve already covered job-fit, culture-fit, and to complete this awesome trilogy: team-fit!
I’m sure some of you have already experienced a perfect candidate for the job, that fit really well with the company’s culture and beliefs… but who turned out to be a total disaster for the team. A misfit within the team can be devastating to other employees.
So beware!
Evaluate the compatibility between your employees and your soon-to-be new hire.
7 – Don’t judge a book by its cover
Dig deeper. A nice label on the bottle sure makes it appealing, but it doesn’t mean it’ll be a good wine!
Need I say more?
8 – Ask the Right Questions with Well-Structured Interviews
If you need to post job offers in the right places, to find the right candidate, for the right job, with the right company fit, with the right team… don’t you think you ought to ask the RIGHT questions?
Prepare yourself with a well-structured interview guide based on personality and job requirements.
9 – Check References
Make sure that that pimple wasn’t photoshopped out of the picture (see point #3 in this article!)
In other words, check your candidate’s references to make sure their resume, experiences and education are as close to reality as possible.
10 – Rely on the Person’s Potential
Experience and education are in the past. The interview is in the present. But what about the future?
After going through your exhaustive process, if you know the candidate is most likely to have what it takes to overcome the job’s challenges and bring your company to a successful tomorrow, then go for it!
Sometimes, it goes beyond experience and academic background. It’s about being naturally built to be the right person to hire that actually HAS what it takes.
11 – Hire slow, fire fast
Whether :
- Your current resources are overloaded with all the work and are in a desperate need of help.
- You just signed a new client and you need an extra hand, pronto.
- Someone unfortunately voluntarily left your company, and you were already overloaded as is.
It doesn’t matter. TAKE YOUR TIME. Hire Sllllooooooowwwwly. I know it sounds a bit drastic, but from experience, it should almost be tip number one.
A bad hire can cost up to 140% of a salary when you have to replace them, and I’m sure you’d love to avoid that.
So again: “Hire slow, fire fast.”
12 – Use the Right Kind of Onboarding
Hiring the right person means being ready to welcome them the way they need to be welcomed. An anxious introvert might NOT appreciate showing up to a 5 à 7, a week before his/her first day to meet the team. An assertive extrovert, however, might just love telling the team about his previous accomplishments over lunch on his first day.
Get to know your new hire, and adapt your onboarding process a bit. After all, you went through all these steps to find your own hidden gem.
13 – Improve your Hiring Process
It’s probably the marketer in me who’s speaking!
Either way, always try and see what you can do better, what you can learn from other organizations, get feedback from employees to see if they have improvement suggestions…
…or read articles that give you great tips (!)
Other Tips for Hiring the Right People
To be honest, hiring the right people probably takes another 13 easy tips, as it is NOT an easy job. But you have to start somewhere, right? Hopefully, this helps.
My last tip being “Keep Improving your Hiring Process”, how about putting it in practice? Help me out and write your own tips in the comments section below!