Bad hiring decisions can be costly in more ways than one. According to a recent survey, twenty-seven percent of U.S. employers reported that just one bad hire had cost their company tens of thousands of dollars. Another survey indicated that a miss-hire costs a company 200% of their annual salary. In addition to financial costs, the recruiting, training, and rehiring processes also cost companies a great deal of precious time. Moreover, making a bad hiring decision creates a ripple effect among organizations that negatively impacts employee morale, leads to a decrease in productivity and disruptions on projects, and can hurt relationships with clients.
The art of making a good hire does not come from being good at skimming endless amounts of resumes for keywords and qualifications. Managers that invest their time and energy into creating a strategic, structured hiring process and a well-thought-out position description that aligns with company goals will find the best candidates with the right level of technical expertise and leadership skills to make a positive impact on their organization.
Make the right hire by adding these six strategic steps to your hiring process:
Step 1: Invest in your current staff
Your ability to hire the best people is directly correlated to your current team’s longevity, alignment with company culture, interviewing skills, and ability to promote your organization. This is a key competitive advantage in today’s market and starts during the interview. Clearly conveying your company’s mission, vision, core values, and benefits ensures the candidate understands and can fully take advantage of everything your company has to offer, increasing the potential for greater job satisfaction and loyalty.
Step 2: Ask competency and values-based behavioral interview questions
Your company’s core values and beliefs are the drivers behind your culture and long-term business success. Asking competency based behavioral interview questions will help you uncover if a candidate’s technical and soft skills align with the nature and requirements of the position while ensuring they are a good cultural fit. Remember, past behaviors are a true barometer of future behaviors in similar business and interpersonal situations.
Step 3: Conduct a pre-hire assessment
It’s easy for a potential candidate to modify attitudes and behaviors during an interview. Conducting a pre-hire assessment reveals consistent, in-depth, and objective insight into personality traits, learning skills, critical thinking, and reasoning styles, which helps identify how a candidate will perform on the job and work with others, preventing personnel issues and conflicts down the road.
Step 4: Take enough time through the hiring and selection process
HR professionals are often pressured to quickly make hiring decisions. However, rushing through the hiring and selection process leads to higher turnover rates and more time spent trying to fill the same position. Be sure to leave time for candidates to ask questions and for you and your team to “sell” yourselves and your company on why they should consider your opportunity and change jobs.
Step 5: Communicate strategic expectations during the interview
Nothing is worse than expecting one thing and getting another. That’s why during the interview, it’s important to outline and clearly communicate your 3-, 6-, and 12-month performance expectations and deliverables. Be sure the candidate understands and can meet those strategic expectations, as well as share the support they can expect to receive from you in return.
Step 6: Create an onboarding program
Your onboarding program is your first chance to make a good impression to new employees. A well-planned and executed program will help employees feel connected to your organization and prepared to start a new job. However, a poorly designed program will cause employees to disengage with your company early and decide that taking the new job was a mistake.
Improving Your Hiring Process with Torch Group
Finding the best talent to help your company grow isn’t always easy. Nonetheless, investing your time and energy into the best hiring process before making the first candidate call will pay off with a significant return on investment when the candidate you’ve chosen makes a positive impact on your organization in both the short and long term.
Torch Group’s seasoned search professionals partner with your team before, during and after the hiring process to become an extension of your organization. Our strategic and consultative search methodology revolves around our proven, repeatable Signature Search Process. We take the time to get to know each candidate, ensuring the opportunities we present align with their career goals and motivations, creating a positive experience for your team and the candidate.
Our team takes a consultative approach to every search and can help evaluate and improve your company’s hiring process from beginning to end, offering advice on interviewing techniques, frequency of communication, company benefits, sending offer letters, relocation assistance, onboarding and more.
To learn about our search services please contact Susan Acker, VP, SR. Account Manager at sacker@torchgroup.com or 203-536-2249 or complete and submit this form and let us know how we can help.