How to Hire the Right Employee Every Time (Part 2)

When adding staff, every manger is in need of the right help, right now. But don’t let that pressing need undercut your interviewing process. Keep in mind that a hiring blunder may cost you your own job. Today, I’ll cover part 2 of how to improve your hiring process.

In Part 1 of this series, I covered the first three tips of making a good hire:

#1 Develop solid written job descriptions

#2 Create an applicant screening process

#3 Use behavioral-based questioning

Today, we’ll pick up with 4 more tips for hiring the right employee, every time:

Hiring Process Tip #4: Invest in Interview Training

Inexperienced managers make interviewing mistakes. They may ask illegal or inappropriate questions, spend too much time talking about themselves or the company, or hire based on “gut feel.” That’s why investing in interviewing training is critical.

In addition, it’s important to identify previous hiring mistakes and then teach all managers the do’s and don’ts of interviewing. It’s a good investment especially considering the high costs of poor hiring decisions. 

In fact, The Missouri Small Business Development Center estimates that it costs one-third of a new hire’s annual salary to replace an employee. By evaluating candidates against job-specific competencies and by using a consistent method of evaluating candidates’ qualifications you will be better equipped to make good hiring and promotion decisions.

Hiring Process Tip #5: Consider a Team Interview

Inexperienced managers make interviewing mistakes.

Typically, candidates interview managers sequentially and may appear a better fit as they go along, simply because they learn more about the company during the interview process. Instead, some companies are moving toward team interviews. When several team members interview the candidate together, it results in better information, reduced personal bias, and saves time. Although all team members should be properly trained to probe for detailed information and seek clarification ahead of time, team interviews are also a good training ground for less experienced interviewers.

It’s important to let the candidate know ahead of time that it will be a group interview and to also assign a lead interviewer who will ask most of the questions while the rest of the team takes notes and joins in later with additional probing questions. It’s also important that interviewing teams are respectful of each other because the candidate will be learning about the workplace culture from the team dynamics. Team interviews require planning up front, but can pay off in the long-run.

Hiring Process Tip #6: Plan for Consistency 

Another important aspect of the hiring process is consistency. Creating a defined process, developing your interview questions ahead of time, and asking the same questions in the same order in every interview allows candidates to be more equally compared.

In addition, determine ahead of time how you will greet the candidate, explain the interview process, and close out each interview. Finally, create a standard process for recording and evaluating candidate responses and train your raters in the process. Consistency and facilitated discussion is what allows your team to reach consensus. No matter how experienced the interviewers, bias and first impressions cloud judgment and consistency helps to reduce these negative effects.

Hiring Process Tip #7: Perform Reference Checks

Since every candidate puts his best foot forward during the interview, reference and background checks are useful, particularly for higher level and other sensitive positions. They allow organizations to learn to more about a candidate’s background and experience as well as provide additional information about the candidate’s personality, behaviors, and traits that may not be apparent during the interview.

However, in the US, due to the risks of possible litigation, many employers are often advised to severely restrict the information given in reference checks. So it may be difficult to obtain anything but basic information; still basic reference checks are important. 

For example, in May of 2002, Sandra Baldwin resigned as president of the United States Olympic Committee after admitting that she lied about her academic credentials. She claimed that she had a doctorate from Arizona State University. A basic check would have revealed she did not complete her dissertation.

So, in summary,  it’s a good idea to learn as much as you can about a candidate before hiring them, it’s also important to be sure you following corporate policy, and that you have a good understanding of the legal landscape where you live.

So there you have, four more tips to help you improve the hiring process. 

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