The hiring and onboarding process is changing with new resources for organizations to utilize in making better hiring decisions. Below are three tips to help make better hiring decisions.
1. Be Proactive
Proactive recruitment allows a company to find the best candidate over time. Versus traditional reactive hiring. Reactive hiring is waiting until a vacancy occurs and then beginning the search process. As leaders, we can anticipate the hiring needs based on workload analysis and company growth trends. With proactive recruitment, we are constantly ‘fishing’ for qualified candidates, so when a vacancy occurs, we have a list of qualified candidates ready to be considered. This approach provides a strategic, thoughtful process for making quicker selections while avoiding the more typical emergency hiring process.
Two examples of proactive recruitment include: 1) Recruitment marketing establishes a flow of candidates to be sifted through for future openings. 2) An employee referral program where employees are recommending candidates for consideration. The benefit of this approach is that employees have pre-screened an individual before they recommend him/her and tend to be supportive of the individual, helping anchor the new hire to the organization.
2. Stay Consistent and Objective
Data-driven recruiting and analytics increase the speed of replacement, lower the cost and improves the quality of hire. Our experience is that many people talk a good talk but, on the job, you find they do not have the skills. Over the years, we have increasingly tweaked the selection process to ensure that the individual had the rights skills and fit with our organization.
Hiring Assessments, particularly PXT SelectTM a Wiley Brand Assessment, provides highly researched and vetted assessment software to narrow down the candidates to the best fits for in the company and the position. Objective assessments allow for a quantifiable rating of cognitive ability and personality traits in correlation to the specific job opening. The consistency of testing allows the development of a broad pool of information from current and past employees. This information constitutes a model for potential hires to be compared. Consistent hiring practices using these types of tools allows decision-making to have solid information-driven backing.
Thinking through the interview process is an important consideration. Structured interviews allow consistency. We suggest that an assessment can help us ask questions that balance the candidate’s strength and weaknesses to see the whole person. This creates a nonbiased hiring process to base decisions that benefit the company and the individual. With PXT Select, the interviewer receives customized interview questions based on the potential hire’s assessment results. Instead of the traditional interview questions, each interview is tailored to discover what extent he/she is a good fit for the job and organization.
3. Understand Candidate Needs
Each hire needs specific care during the onboarding process. In the Forming Stage, the hire is filled with questions to discover how they fit in a role and company. Leadership will need to prepare to answer questions and guide the hire into desired behaviors. During the interview, questions surrounding possible needs can be assessed to see if there is a proper bandwidth is available to lead them to succeed in the role. Consider these examples:
Candidate A has the exact personality to fit the company’s vision and culture but needs extensive training. The organization has no resources to spare for Candidate A and he/she quickly becomes burned out and discouraged, eventually leaving the company.
Candidate B comes into the company overly qualified but lacks an understanding of the company culture. Candidate B is guided to understand the protocol for the team’s expectations, and specifics goals he/she will help accomplish. Leadership addressed B’s PXT Select Coaching Report and were able to target aspects that did not align and cater onboarding to enable the company to succeed.
Final Thoughts
Strategic alignment with assessments, interviews, and team feedback facilitate a better fit both for the candidate and the company. What is the vision for the company? How does this candidate add alignment and tools to move the vision into reality? Think past the present need and consider the potential new hire’s future fit both for him/her and the organization.
PXT Select offers customized assessments, interview questions, and a coaching report, among other things, to create a consistent and unbiased tool for better hiring decisions. Making intentional hiring decisions allows an organization to thrive, build trust, and be equipped for long term success.
For the Faith-Based Reader:
“If the whole body were an eye, where would be the sense of hearing? If the whole body were an ear, where would be the sense of smell? But as it is, God arranged the members in the body, each one of them, as he chose. If all were a single member, where would the body be? As it is, there are many parts, yet one body. The eye cannot say to the hand, “I have no need of you,” nor again the head to the feet, “I have no need of you.”1 Corinthians 12:17-20 ESV
What stands out is “The eye cannot say to the hand ‘I have no need of you.’” The goal of the company is not to have ten eyes or four legs but to have two eyes, two legs. Value each member for the skill he/she possesses and what each one can contribute to the organization’s culture. As a leader, it is your responsibility to understand the “need” and find people that are the right fit. In this light, it makes sense to be more strategic and slow down to make better hiring decisions.