Three Things You Should Include In Your Pre-Applicant Screening
Posted on Thu, May 06, 2010
By Koleen Singerline
With the economy picking up, many companies are returning to an almost forgotten activity - hiring. Relax, it's like roller skating, it will come back to you. Now is a good time to look at your prescreening process and make sure you have included all necessary elements.
Generally accepted hiring practices include completion of the company's required paperwork, a complete series of interviews with your company's representatives, an assessment of the skills and interests, possibly a drug test and definitely a thorough reference check and background investigation.
Key items we have found are important:
The "chemistry fit": your company has a culture unique to you. You need to find candidates that are going to be comfortable in that culture and you will be comfortable with. We have worked with talented applicants that just don't fit in certain cultures, but are extremely successful in others. Cultural fit is 80% of finding the right candidate. Since it's difficult to determine this fit in an interview, many companies use the temp to hire process to allow time for the candidate and the company to see if the "right fit" is there.
Skills Check: Candidates are often inaccurate when gauging the level of their skills - they can only compare their skills to what they know. You need a tool that serves as an objective evaluation. We use Proveit - it's easily administered over the internet, and there are hundreds of tests available.
Background Check: This category of information can include a variety of criminal record searches at the local, state and national levels, a motor vehicle record search for driving history information, social security number verification and an employment credit report. You can determine what is best for your company. Your goal is to create a safe environment. For most purposes, we use a simple background check as a screening tool.
It can be challenging to put a good screening process together
when you only hire occasionally. Staffing agencies such as Snelling, have had many years and thousands of interviews to make improvements to the screening and qualifying process. Like roller skating - the more you practice, the better you get.