9 Tips That Will Help You Hire Great People

According to reliable statistics, it costs your business $7,000 to replace a salaried employee. $10,000 for a mid-level employee and $40,000 for a senior executive. Bad hires are bad for business. With this in mind, it is key to hire and retain great people. Here are nine sure tips to guide you towards making the best hiring decisions.

1. Develop a Comprehensive Job Description

Ensure to develop and update job descriptions continually. As the different roles in your business evolve to keep up with your specific business needs, ensure the JD’s reflect this.

Do this regularly and not just when you have an opening. This will help you familiarize yourself with your hiring needs, which will make it much easier to spot the best candidates when your need to recruit arises. A vague job description gets you a candidate that is somewhat right for the job however a comprehensive one is more likely to you a person who is a better fit for the role and your organization.

2. Evaluate Compatibility

Ensure that the candidate is compatible with the role and with your organization’s culture. Here you want insights into your candidate’s personality, aptitude, problem-solving traits, and motivations. These are difficult to measure in traditional interviews. An excellent tool for this is a pre-employment evaluation.

Pre-employment assessments can give you valuable information regarding:

• A candidate’s compatibility with the role

Some roles are the best fit for a particular personality type. Healthcare roles, for example, require empathetic people. The hospitality industry needs cheerful, outgoing personalities. Getting a candidate that is compatible with the role, gives you a great performer, who is less likely to contribute to your turnover.

• A candidate’s compatibility with your organization’s culture

If a candidate has shared values with your organization, they fit in better with your organization. This will show through their performance, and they are likely to stay with you longer.

If your company is big on CSR for example, check your applicant’s previous involvement in charity and community work and even volunteerism. This is a good fit. In both instances, pre-employment evaluations will help point you toward the most suitable candidates. They also bring in objectivity throughout the hiring process, as you get raw data to work with as opposed to personal biases and perceptions.

3. Make Hiring a Continuous Process

Do not wait till you have a position to fill to begin the recruitment process. Make it a continuous cycle. Always have your ears and eyes on the ground for great hires.

Platforms like LinkedIn are very useful in doing this. It allows you to view a number of profiles discreetly and without having to make direct contact. Another way to do this is the “accepting applications” method. Here, candidates are allowed to fill in application forms, but with no expectation of an interview.

The goal is to scout for possible candidates and create a database. This becomes your primary resource when a position falls vacant. Having a few names in mind will take away some of the pressure of finding someone fast, and settling on a poor choice because you need to fill the position urgently.

Hire freelancers when you have a shortfall to cover, so your business has time to hire the right employees which as we know can take weeks if not months depending on the skills and experience required.

4. Ask Random Questions

The internet today is awash will sets of interview questions that a candidate is likely to be asked at an interview. This means that by the time they are sitting in front of you, they have perfectly choreographed answers to give.

Get around this by mixing things up and getting creative. You can do this by preparing unorthodox questions, or asking less career-based questions and more about general life situations. Better still, give a role-related task for them to do. Ask for a sales pitch for a marketing role for example. The goal is to get to know the candidates, how they think and how they handle situations.

You can also consider an out-of-office interview, say interview candidates over lunch or golf. Make it a natural and relaxed conversation. This will give you a better feel of the candidate than the standard traditional questions in the boardroom.

5. Look for Diversity

This is the best way to bring in innovation and divergent perspectives. Hiring the same type of employee limits your capability over time because you generally have the same skillset and way of doing things.

When you diversify, you stir the pot a bit and bring in different talents, different perspectives, and voices. This becomes a plus when hiring because applicants will be attracted to a diverse working environment as it exposes them more and creates a fertile ground for professional and personal development.

6. Have a strong brand

Position yourself as a choice employer. Have a great organizational culture. Have opportunities for growth and personal development and look into less traditional approaches to work such as remote working models.

Basically, be an employer that’s attractive to the best brains in the market. This will draw in applications from the best, giving you the opportunity to choose from a great pool of candidates.

7. Raid Your Intern Bank

Depending on your organization, you can hire interns from local institutions, with or without pay. Do not forget about your interns when hiring. For one, these are people that are already in your company and know the ins and outs, meaning they will require little or no orientation or adjustment periods.

Secondly, they are tried and tested. Their immediate supervisors should be able to report on their competencies and abilities. When a position comes up, get this data and screen the interns You will most likely get some great candidates to take up a new role immediately.

8. Enthusiasm

While you can gauge a candidate’s enthusiasm throughout the interview, pay particular attention to the questions, they ask you towards the end of the interview.

Are they asking questions to know more about the organization and the role or are they leaning more towards remuneration? By being keen on this section, you can separate candidates who are looking for any job from candidates who are interested in this role and see its value for their overall career goals.

9. Analyze Past Hires

This will give you useful data on their profile, how they performed and reasons for exit. Use this information to create a profile of what you think a better candidate would be. This is generally looking at your past mistakes to get better hires.

While some hiring mistakes are bound to happen from time to time, the best way forward is to re-evaluate and implement better tools for improving your recruitment process. With these tips, you should see a better crop of applicants, improved performance, and longevity on new hires.