Having an effective hiring process that allows your organization to hire the right person for the job – job after job – is critical to your organizational success! Making Every Hire Count enables you to achieve organizational objectives, minimize recruiting costs, satisfy customers, improve employee morale, mitigate organizational risks, increase productivity and make management’s job easier. As an organization, your total success and reputation depend on it.
During the hiring process, you spend time, money, energy and effort. If there is a voluntary or involuntary termination, you will not get a return on your investment in human capital. The process starts over again. It will reach a point of diminishing returns. Therefore, it is imperative that you have a process to make every hire count.
Before exploring the hiring process, it is noteworthy to discuss the problems with the typical hiring process. Here are a few:
- We make judgments on the ability to get the job, not to do the job.
- We overvalue presentation over performance – good candidates are not necessarily good at interviewing. Those good at interviewing are not necessarily good candidates.
- Stereotypes, biases and emotions affect our decisions.
- Interviewers sometimes do not know what the job really entails.
- Hires are based on first impressions – 50% of hiring errors are based on first impressions.
- People hire people who are like them.
- We believe everything we’re told by candidates.
The following is the Basic 10 Step Process that is very effective in making every hire count:
1. Conduct a performance analysis (job analysis) -it will enable you to find the candidates best equipped to do the job and will result in a job profile (job description)
2. Fill out appropriate paperwork – it will help you manage the hiring process and satisfy your reporting responsibilities
3. Source and market your position – do long and short term sourcing
4. Identify assessment methods
5. Review resumes and schedule interviews
6. Develop interview questions
7. Conduct interviews and assessments
8. Evaluate candidates
9. Check references
10. Offer the job to the best qualified candidate (or start over if there are none that measure up)
During the performance analysis step, the job benchmarking system is executed; it begins with a list of key accountabilities of the targeted job. They are the critical goals and key business successes the job is accountable for producing. They serve as the reference point in producing a Job Benchmark. It provides a template for specific talent selection for the performance of that job.
As organizations move on in this century and beyond, it will be imperative to make every hire count. There will continue to be fierce competition for jobs. You must have a system and process to hire the best candidate to meet the challenges.
Thanks to Charles Parnell, Senior Strategic Partner at HPI Solutions, who has a long career in Human Resource Leadership, including teaching Human Resources at the University of Phoenix.