The cost of a poor hiring decision can impact your bottom line, and will often have an influence on company morale, your reputation, or the provision of consistent customer service. Your toolbox of recruitment selection aids should include a number of methods to assist you in selecting the best candidate for your needs, recognizing that no one tool will provide you with as accurate a result as a combination of tools.
The process of making a hiring decision includes the following key steps:
The purpose of pre-screening is to determine if the applicant has the basic knowledge and skills needed to do the job. As the recruiter, you must establish a list of absolute qualifications or knockout factors. If the applicant lacks some of the fundamental skills (technical competencies) required to do the job, they may be knocked out of the competition in the pre-screening process.
For instance, if you are recruiting an Accounts Payable Clerk, you might require previous accounting experience. This could be a knockout factor for your vacancy. Often, this step can be facilitated by an Applicant Tracking System (ATS) or through a Recruitment Process Outsourcing (RPO) agreement with a recruiting agency such as TPD.
There are three critical elements that a candidate must possess in order to succeed within a job: knowledge, skills, and personal attributes. Together they form a “triangle of success.” From pre-screening, you can usually determine an applicant’s knowledge and skills, but it will take an interview to determine the personal attributes. When interviewing, stick to the 80/20 rule: the candidate should be doing 80% of the talking, while you ask questions and guide the process for the other 20%. Most of your questions should be open-ended to encourage discussion. These questions usually begin with “who,” “what,” “when,” “where,” “tell me about,” or “describe.”
When interviewing, it's critical to probe the candidate’s experiences to substantiate their skill set. The best predictor of future behavior is past performance. For example, if an element of your job is working under pressure for periods of time, you might ask your candidate, “describe a job where you’ve worked under pressure.” Remember, if you ask a hypothetical question (“what would you do if….”), you will get a hypothetical answer and some candidates have enough imagination to create some extraordinary answers. Your hiring decision should be based on facts, not speculation.
Perhaps you are recruiting for the position of an Accounting Clerk. Consider testing your candidates with a Microsoft Excel Spreadsheet assessment to gauge their ability to produce a workable and understandable financial document. Many recruiting agencies or HR consultants provide access to a variety of assessments.
You should complete a minimum of two reference checks on each finalist. Research shows that up to one-third of applicants are “creative” with their employment history. By checking references, you validate the information you've received and ensure your candidate has the knowledge, skills and personal attributes they've presented. Again, ask open-ended questions and ask for supporting evidence where possible.
Alternatively, some employers choose to outsource their reference check process to make sure they receive unbiased honest feedback on the candidate. This also alleviates the final reference check bottleneck from the hiring process if time isn't available to make the required calls.
Using these selection tools combined will provide you with the information you need to make a comprehensive hiring decision. If you follow these steps, you will minimize the risk of making a poor hiring decision.
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