While there are hundreds of thousands of people looking for jobs now, finding the right person for your role isn’t easy. You’re looking for a shining star in a galaxy. While there are standout candidates, there are only a few that can fit well with your team and do the job well too. It takes hours of scanning resumes and conducting interviews before you offer a position. And then, you may find out that the candidate you decided upon went with another opportunity.
What many recruiters and HR departments arguably forget is that hiring is a two-way street. It’s just as much finding someone that wants to work for your company as it is the company wanting the individual. Even if someone possesses all the skills for a certain position, if they don’t align with the company’s mission, it will never work. They will soon be disheartened and frustrated, and they could potentially pass these emotions to their colleagues.
Hiring the right person is a challenge, but that’s particularly true now. With major tech companies issuing layoffs, there is an abundance of highly qualified candidates searching for their next gig. If you’re feeling stressed about your next hire, keep reading. Below are three tips for how to hire the right person for any open position.
1. Understand Your Company’s Culture
Before you post any job, you need to examine your company. All of your recruiters should be tapped into what is happening internally. They need to understand what the culture is within the company, even if everyone is working remotely. How is everyone collaborating on a daily basis? What projects or plans are employees particularly excited about?
Understanding your company’s culture can assist in finding a candidate that will not only fit but add to the company. Culture fit is the idea that a new hire models the same attitudes and behaviors as the current team. For instance, if a company highly values entrepreneurialism, a candidate who possesses entrepreneurial skills and talents would be a good fit. A culture add, is a new hire that brings something new to the table, often diversity in skills or perspective.
Finding an individual who will be a culture add is a tough assignment for recruiters, which is why outside assistance can be beneficial. Let’s say your team is in need of a highly specialized front end developer or engineer. While a recruiter could scan LinkedIn for hours trying to find interested individuals, it may be easier to work with engineering staffing agencies. These agencies are adept in knowing what kind of talent the team needs to succeed. With this information, recruiters can then identify individuals who will work well with the current team and add to it as well.
2. Create Well-Structured Interviews
Another challenge with hiring happens within the interview process. Some candidates are excellent interviewers. They know what to say and how to say it to win over anybody. Others may be stellar employees but poor interviewers. They may appear to be timid or shy when in actuality they are just taking everything in and pausing before they respond.
This is why creating well-structured interviews is essential for recruiters as they look for the perfect employee. In today’s digital world, many interviews happen via video conferencing platforms. While video interviews have their setbacks, utilizing them also means candidates can interview with several employees in a shorter amount of time.
When composing the interview schedule, make sure you have an array of people conducting interviews. This should range from the candidate’s potential manager to other members of the team. Depending on the role, you may also want to bring in members from the executive team. Set up an interview score card so interviewers can rank and score candidates after the session. This system allows for additional input, and can help the recruiter know if this candidate will be a good addition to the company.
3. Conduct a Skills Test or Exercise
Once you have a few highly qualified candidates in mind, it can be helpful to conduct a skills test. This will allow you to see firsthand how they perform, which is hard to decipher in a typical interview. Of course, tests can be tedious, so it may even filter out a few more candidates when you ask them to do an assignment.
There are various exercises you can conduct, depending on your company’s field and the specific role. For editorial jobs, for instance, you can ask candidates to pitch and write a short article. For candidates such as graphic designers or illustrators, you can have them present a sample of their work to a select team. This presentation will allow you to get a sense of how they do with public speaking as well as how they are able to articulate themselves.
The assignment should be one of the final stages of the interview process. So once a candidate has completed an assessment, be sure to follow up with feedback shortly after. If you have selected a candidate based on the test, congratulate them for a job well done. For those that were not selected, providing feedback can help them understand what they can do better for future interviews. Failure to provide feedback can lead to candidates feeling animosity toward the company.
Takeaways
Hiring the right person at the right time is rarely easy. However, with a few strategies in place, you can make the process as streamlined as possible for everyone involved. And remember, if you’re hiring to replace someone who recently left, don’t look for someone to replicate what was lost. Rather, look for someone that is going to bring the necessary skills and enhance the team. This mindset can be helpful, particularly in today’s current hiring landscape.
Laila Azzahra is a professional writer and blogger that loves to write about technology, business, entertainment, science, and health.