Effective Hiring: Five Steps To Take Now for 2012

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By Koleen Singerline

With the new year fast approaching, many of us are setting budgets for the new year and making plans to improve our businesses in 2012.  Many companies have put off hiring for the last two years, but are beginning to feel the push to make some changes in their staffing.  Rather than waiting for that moment when you realize you have a hiring crisis, adding an effective hiring strategy to your 2012 strategy is imperative to creating a pool of talented candidates that will be available when you need to make an addition to your team.  This plan should include the following:

1. Performance-based job descriptions that define expectations clearly - There are certain objectives that are pertinent to achieving success in a job position.  This includes major and secondary objectives, teamwork, problems to be solved, planning and management issues and strategic and cultural issues.

2. A systematic interviewing process based on objective evaluation principles - Even though personality and first impressions are important, in the context of the interviewing process, the interviewer needs to makes sure those attributes do not overtake the objective evaulation of the candidate.  By focusing on performance-based job descriptions (important characteristics that predict future success such as individual and teamskills traits) you are able to reduce the impact of personality and first impressions on your hiring decision.
   

3. Established schedule for your hiring process - A set hiring schedule should be used for all interviewers such as determining timing for developing the performance-based job description, budgeting for the job position, advertisements for job opening, preliminary resume reviwing and timing for interviews.  It is also important for all interviewers to be on time for their interviews with candidates.  Some candidates have turned down job offers due to the interviewer's lateness and lack of preparation in the interview.

4. A comprehensive sourcing plan that brings in top candidates - It is difficult to hire top candidates if you are blinded by many poor or mediocre ones.  Your resume reviewing strategy should include creating motivating job postion advertisements, establishing internal referral programs, using internet forums, setting up an easily navigatable website, networking, training your staff based on performance-based attributes and employing professional recruiters.

5. An extensive training program for employees who will be interviewing candidates - A performance-based job description and a training program that  insures hiring managers follow a consistent interviewing process will help you identify candidates that are the right fit for your team.

These strategies work to prevent mistakes in the hiring process such as hiring on first impressions or gut feelings, irrelevant selection criteria, focusing on the wrong candidates, lack of performance-based interviewing  and failure to make timely hiring decisions.  Hiring the wrong employee could have an negative impact on client relations, increase turnover rate, risk confidential information being shared and cause your company to waste time and money on training new employee.  By organizing your hiring process , you are able to avoid hiring the wrong candidate for your company.

Preparing an in-depth hiring strategy is both time consuming and vital for recruiting good candidates.  We have developed The Complete Hiring Guide to help you organize and execute a successful hiring strategy.  You can download the free guide below.