A strong and well integrated team of employees is absolutely crucial to a business’s ability to succeed in a competitive environment, making the hiring process in many respects the foundation for every achievement or failure to follow. Done well, a good hire blends into the existing team, building on strengths and providing support where there are weaknesses. A good hire also provides growth for everyone involved through the addition of new ideas. Done poorly, a new hire can have the opposite effect of bringing progress to a screeching halt as existing team members try to train an individual lacking the skill set or team fit to be successful.
With so much at stake, investing the time and energy to review the following items in your recruitment and onboarding process is time well spent and will provide great returns:
1 – Job description, what job description?
Hiring for a position in the absence of a job description is like shopping for an important and complicated dinner without a recipe. A list of required knowledge, skills and abilities essential to successfully performing the position should be front of mind at all times during the recruitment process as well as providing a natural basis for your advertisement for recruiting. If you need to create a job description, interviewing the hiring manager and any other incumbents already performing the work is a great place to start. A job description also provides your legal foundation for turning one candidate down in favor of another more qualified applicant.
2 – Make your list and check it twice!
Even if you have a long established job description, now is the time to pull it out, dust it off and derive from it your list of essential requirements that all candidates must have as well as a second list of perquisites that would be awfully nice to have. Sorting the job description into these two categories will also direct your review of resumes as folks fall into the C pile (possessing just the minimum requirements), the B pile (folks possessing minimum qualifications and additional perks) and the A pile (your top candidates who have all minimum qualifications and a large number of perks) and the D pile (applicants failing even the minimum qualifications). The key to this system is establishing this criteria before the resumes start rolling in and making sure all decision makers are in agreement on the criteria.
3 – Applications provide structure
Many companies will require every applicant complete an application or risk outright dismissal. The thinking behind this is to ensure the hiring manager has all the necessary information to make a thorough and equitable evaluation. It’s hard to compare apples to apples when reviewing resumes because so much can be masked or entirely omitted in an optional format whereas completing an application requires candidates to include dates for past positions, reference and criminal conviction releases and statements attesting to the applicant’s truthful completion of the application. If your preference is not to have every candidate complete the application, be certain you have had your top candidates do so at minimum.
4 – Interviewers aren’t trained
Just as important as obtaining the information they need to make the best hiring decision for an open position is an interviewer’s need to provide an even playing field for each candidate interviewed. Training in asking legal and appropriate interview questions in addition to agreed upon pre-scripted questions for use during the interview can go a long way toward providing a comfortable and legal interview environment wherein candidates are at their best and interviewers are relaxed and focused on making the very best choice for a long term fit.
5 – Interviews aren’t structured
Interviews, like any other social interaction, go more smoothly when they have a flow. Candidates are essentially guests of the company and as such need to be welcomed and then given a brief overview of the role of each interviewer, their relationship to the open position, the position itself, and the company. Questions will be asked of the candidate relating to how they have or would respond in certain situations, questions about skill sets or relevant training, rapport building or requests to demonstrate certain technical aptitudes, whatever is appropriate given the open position. Allow time for follow up questions and for the candidate themselves to ask questions of the team or hiring manager as well. Regardless of the outcome of the interview, be sure to thank the candidate for their time. Make sure all interviewers are in agreement on the approximate flow of the interview and who will lead off and conclude the session.
6 – Only one person interviews candidates
Whether performed individually, in a team or panel environment, it is important that more than one company representative meet each candidate, even if only to welcome the candidate and ask them a few rapport building questions before leaving them to interview with the hiring manager. Interviewing put a great deal of pressure on us to overcome our natural human predisposition to stereotype, categorize and respond to inherent biases we may not even know are there. Give yourself the support of a second opinion when making a decision as important as who to have join your team.
7 – Candidates don’t receive follow up
The interview and candidate review process can take a great deal of time and energy. Realize that the behind the scenes deliberations, discussions, and decision making process are just that to a candidate, behind-the-scenes. If you have one or two folks you felt would be an excellent fit for the team, be sure to keep in communication with them throughout this process at the risk of losing them through seeming silent indifference. Chances are they are wowing other employers with the self-same interview abilities that so impressed you and when you come calling with your offer, you may find they’ve already accepted someone else’s.
8 – Offer letter doesn’t include at will statement, timeline for acceptance and offer is not conditional
Once you’ve identified your superstar new addition, make sure your offer letter includes a statement about the relationship being at-will for both employer and employee, as well as conditional dependent upon the candidate’s successful completion of satisfactory reference, background and drug screening. Be sure to establish a timeline for acceptance as well to ensure you have a response in time to approach a second candidate if your offer is declined for some reason. 48 hours is fairly typical.
9 – Failure to properly orient new hires
Just as essential to a well-thought out recruitment and interview process is the introduction of a new hire to the company. Think through who will be charged with setting up email, voicemail, computer access as well as providing a tour and lunch date on the first day of the job. Ideally, a desk would be prepared in advance of their arrival, complete with essential office supplies. Nothing says, “We’re disorganized and forgot you’d be coming…” like the lack of a place to sit, a pen to write with, or knowledge of where the bathrooms are!
10 – Forgetting to provide feedback
Feedback, be it kudos or development oriented, sends the message that a new hire will be supported on an on-going basis by their manager. This starts in the training period and is never more crucially appreciated than in those first 90 days on a new job. If you are the type that this doesn’t come naturally to, schedule reminders in your calendar to check in and provide feedback every other week at the outside. Continue the same dialog you were so impressed with in the interview. This will also help you re-direct performance early on if need be.
Properly done, the recruiting, interviewing and onboarding process can be the successful start of what is often a long lived and fruitful relationship. For more guidance on job description creation, appropriate and legal interview techniques and questions, offer letter or on-boarding process samples, please contact Xenium via our website, www.XeniumHR.com