Strive To Hire The Best

Your people are the key to your success (or failure). Why anyone hurries the hiring process is mind-boggling to say the least. Even in a tight labor market businesses want to hire the best of what’s available.

Here are some tips for hiring good people:

  • Be patient. Don’t hurry the hiring process. We believe you are better off with a vacant position than having a marginal employee filling it.
  • Develop a complete and accurate position description that details all aspects of the position.
  • Develop what you feel is an ideal profile of the person that will fill the position.
  • Utilize an employee assessment instrument in the hiring process. These tools are essential to uncovering a person’s interests, ability and personality. The best instruments provide a profile of the individual against the ideal profile for the job.
  • Spend a little extra time and money attracting as many quality candidates as possible. You will want to be able to select from as many good candidates as possible.
  • Be prepared! Develop interview questions prior to any interviews. Focus on the desired traits and profile when developing interview questions. Design the questions to draw out traits and tendencies. Get at the past behavior of the candidate in the interview process. Have candidates explain situations they have dealt with in the past that are relevant to the job you are hiring for. -Put the candidates through a series of what if questions. These are situational in nature and force the candidate to think about what he/she would do in each situation.
  • Once you have boiled the candidate field down to just a few people, bring the finalists back for a second round of interviews.
  • Have several people interview the candidates. This allows for different perspectives and accounts for various biases.
  • Examine your wage/salary and benefits structure. Are you at least competitive with the market? The best people will be attracted to the highest paying positions in most cases.
  • Think long-term. Ask yourself if hiring the candidate is in the best interest of the organization. Remember that hiring marginal employees has a devastating short and long-term impact on a business.