All too often, businesses react to their immediate needs and circumstances, and take ill-advised hiring short-cuts that ultimately cost them untold dollars in poor decisions, lost customers, strained working relationships and unnecessary turn-over.
With the current candidate shortage and the void of an unfilled job, companies are challenged with getting positions filled quickly. Some companies are so pressured to get the job filled that they will almost literally put a minimally qualified “warm body” in the spot and hope that it will work out. It usually doesn’t.
Not having a systematic approach to hiring is both a poor business practice and a costly game of roulette. It ultimately results in unnecessary turnover that has now been calculated to cost up to 150% of an individual’s annual salary!
A systematic approach can be developed so that intelligent hiring decisions are made for the best short-term needs and long term investment.
1) Develop succession and contingency plans for your organization. Employees are much more mobile today, and much more likely to seek out alternative employment options if their needs are not being met, or if they “get an offer they can’t refuse.” For each critical position there should be a skills and knowledge inventory, and a game plan for short-term replacement if the person leaves unexpectedly. This will give the company “breathing room” to plan and execute a quality hiring process, avoiding the reactionary hiring syndrome.
2) Have a plan in place for sourcing new candidates before you need them. This includes becoming involved with and staying networked within your industry or discipline. Knowing “who’s who” in your industry and within your competitors can give you insights into the best talent to source when you need it. You can also take advantage of the myriad websites which offer access to candidates via modestly priced resume banks.
It is also a good idea to develop early relationships with a few reputable executive recruiters, so that they know your business, and can function as an extension of your organization in identifying and matching qualified candidates for your higher level or hard to fill positions.
3) Design a consistent process for screening, interviewing and evaluating candidates. Hiring haphazardly, “off the cuff” or “by gut” sets the stage for reactive, subjective, or discriminatory selections. Consistent application of a well thought out process will maximize best-fit selections, and minimize the risk of discrimination lawsuits.
4) Utilize a research-based, validated assessment tool to ascertain suitability traits, which will align with the position and with the organization. It is estimated that interviewing alone is only 30-35% accurate in predicting the long-term success of a candidate. With today’s highly sophisticated technology based assessment tools, such as the Harrison Assessment profiling system, a company can radically improve the predictive accuracy of their hiring to as much as 80 to 90%. It is recommended that any assessment tool that is used be well researched, have proven validity, and be legally compliant.
5) Train all of your hiring managers in behavior-based interviewing techniques. In today’s contemporary hiring process it is generally accepted that this is a most effective way to assess a person’s skills and potential. It is based on the premise that the best predictor of future behavior is actual past behavior. For instance, instead of asking, “What would you do if…,” it is far more beneficial to ask, “Give me an example of how you….” The difference in these two approaches is that one is theoretical, and the other addresses actual experiences and behavior.
6) Don’t bypass the reference checking process. It is often tempting, when everything else looks good, to skip this valuable part of the process. There can be an inaccurate assumption that if everybody on the interview team liked the candidate, then he or she must be okay – let’s go ahead with the offer. However, with all the time and money you have invested in the process thus far, don’t short cut now. Take that extra bit of effort to contact at least three references. Be thorough in your questions so that you feel you have a balanced picture of the person’s strengths and weaknesses.
