How to hire the right candidate
Have any of your previous hires been unsuccessful? Do you have trouble identifying the best candidate?
Below are tips for how you can improve your hiring process to hire more confidently.
A manager sits at their desk - resumes splayed out in front of them. They look over their notes and try to remember key points from the interviews they’ve had over the past 2-3 weeks. There’s a pitfall in their stomach. They realize they still have questions and uncertainties about some of the candidates. Do they call one or two candidates back for another interview? Should they be calling all the candidates back? Will a video interview gather the information they need? Or do they just make a decision with what they know now?
This is a common situation - and it is also a preventable one.
Below we’ve comprised hiring tips that can improve how you hire - and how you gather the information you need to do so confidently.
Using scorecards to capture the right information
The phrase garbage in, garbage out rings true for hiring. Hiring the best candidate hinges on the how well the interview process is designed to capture critical information so that you can make educated decisions.
We all know how interviews can easily get sidetracked without preparation. One tip to ensure every interview focuses on gathering key hiring criteria is to use an interview scorecard. These scorecards are a shortlist of the must-haves a client needs to succeed in the role. They keep interviews focused on critical criteria and ensure you capture consistent information across candidates.
Not only do scorecards help structure interviews more effectively, but they force hiring stakeholders to align on what a role’s “must-haves” are. This makes the selection process more efficient and keeps those involved focused on pre-determined criteria when determing the bes.
Diversify methods of assessment
Interviews are the spine of most hiring processes - and they’ll always be important. The truth is that interviews are great at assessing some skills, but fall short in assessing others. The person who interviews best may not always be the best person for the role.
So how can you assess candidates across key skill criteria? Here are ways you can diversify your methods of assessment to get a clearer picture on both technical and soft skills.
BEHAVIOURAL ASSESSMENTS
A LinkedIn study revealed that 89% of bad hires lacked critical soft skills. An employee’s soft skills impact their individual work as well as their ability to collaborate with others. Behavioural assessments help managers understand what motivates a candidate, how they’re most likely to behave, and what gives them job satisfaction.
SKILL ASSESSMENTS
Skill assessments are build to evaluate the technical skills of candidates. Two types of skill assessments include:
Knowledge tests: Often in the form of a quiz, knowledge tests unveil a candidate’s technical expertise in an area.
Case Studies: Here you’ll provide a faux scenario or problem and ask the candidate to put together either a solution, presentation or analysis. Case studies give candidates an opportunity apply their experience and skills to activity they are likely to encounter within the role they’ve applied for.
WORK SAMPLES
Hiring managers can ask candidates to provide a sample of their past work. Work samples give a realistic view of the candidate’s work quality and thought process. Providing an opportunity for the candidate to present their work sample also allows them to shed light on the challenges they may have encountered in the process of creating it and how they overcame those challenges.
Interested in diversifying your methods of assessment? Read more on that topic here.
Evaluate Cultural Fit
It is entirely possible for you to find a candidate who ticks off all the boxes (experience, skills and competencies) - but is not a good cultural fit with your organization. While it’s tempting to hire the ‘ticks-all-the-boxes’ candidate - an employee with a poor cultural fit has a higher likelihood to either (1) be frustrated in the job and quit in the short term, or (2) stick it out but jeopardize the productivity of people around them.
To employee turnover, it’s important to assess cultural fit during the hiring process. Here are three tips for evaluating cultural fit:
Define your culture before you start (so you know what you’re looking for)
Ask cultural fit questions in interviews
Leverage behavioural assessments to predict how a candidate will be motivated and interact in your organization
Read on methods to evaluate cultural fit here.
Our take
Managers typically hire when (1) the company is growing quickly and has increased workloads or (2) they need to replace an employee. This means managers are hiring during times when they’re the busiest - taking on extra work to keep teams afloat before that hire is found. We understand why it can be very tempting to rush hiring and difficult to prepare beforehand.
The truth is that hiring is always a high-stakes decision - and mis-hiring can seriously set companies back in both time and money. For context, the cost of replacing an employee or bad hire can be 4x that person’s salary.
At Ari Agency, our north star is to help you find your greatest hire of all time. We go the extra mile to understand your business values, objectives and culture to help you make better hiring decisions. Contact us today to learn more about how we can help you improve your hiring process and find your next all-star.
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