Experienced managers know that some knowledge comes only with time and practice in certain matters. Hiring personnel is just such an area where it’s impossible to do without practice and mistakes made.
You can cover yourself with psychological tests, set up several lines of defense, study a lot of theory, check the subject knowledge of the tested specialist in various ways, but in the end you will still let in an employee who will not work or will not work the way you want it to.
Also, you should always consider the Pareto rule in the part where 80% of the effort is only 20% of the result. The way this principle works for HR department is that even if you recruit the «best of the best», the most effective employees will be distributed within the team in relation to the ineffective ones in the ratio of 20 to 80.
An efficient team, where every employee works at their best, is nothing more than a dream. However, that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t strive for it. Let’s talk about specific recommendations for improving your efficiency.
How to select the right staff
It is assumed that your company structure is already planned. If not, read our material — How to plan the organizing structure of a company.
If you have hired an employee, enter their basic data into the Projecto system right away. Managers will be able to get all the most important information about their subordinates from the profiles.
Universal tips on how to recruit:
- Avoid hiring relatives and good acquaintances.
This is not to say that hiring relatives of existing employees is a bad practice. No. On the contrary, some parenting principles are passed down from generation to generation. And if you come across such a family which suits you fine with everything — be sure to ask to invite other members of the family to your interview. The basic message is that hiring these employees should be treated like hiring all other candidates. No favors or exceptions. If you are not happy with the applicant, you should not hire them. And if it becomes a cause of conflict, any other disputes or offense on the part of an already employed relative, then most likely you have overestimated their skills and characteristics. Work and family relations should not be mixed.
- Work out in advance the profile of a suitable candidate for the position.
You should not set excessive requirements, but you should not lower the bar either. If the salary is adequate for the market and similar positions and responsibilities, candidates will come to you, and you will have a lot to choose from. Another issue is that you need to create a list of subject knowledge to be tested or confirmed in the examinee. If the interview will be handled by an HR specialist, they should be consulted beforehand about what to pay attention to, what questions to ask what the answers may be, and so on. The candidate may not meet all of your points (this is important!), but this must be compensated for by the presence of a system of training, mentoring and exit testing after the probationary period. This way, you can eliminate most of the overlap in hiring unsuitable employees.
- Find out more about the candidate’s personal life.
Finding out about criminal records, police records, outstanding fines and penalties is practically the norm for HR and security services. You need to have confidence in the employee you are hiring. Especially if it is related to significant areas of business such as cash transactions or working with children. The second point is being openly social. Nowadays almost any candidate can be found in social networks, and you can clear up for yourself which sites are used, how they communicate, what information is presented in the profile, and much more. But if a person doesn’t have any social media accounts, it shouldn’t be a problem. Just find out the necessary questions in personal communication.
- Don’t promise anything that the potential employee can’t receive.
Yes, you should not only look at the candidate, but also present yourself. A company has a lot to offer employees within the framework of labor law: vacations, white salary, standard working hours, sick pay. It is good if you have something more. For example, bonus payments, regular corporate events, training and development, etc. This may be of interest to job candidates. But if you promise something at the interview that you don’t have and won’t have, it is very likely that the employee will quit very soon. You will only have wasted your time and energy. You shouldn’t forget the cost of finding each candidate.
- Involve subject-matter experts or immediate supervisors in the interview.
How to find out the candidate’s subject knowledge? If the interview is handled by a superior or HR specialist, they may be far removed from the practices faced by the average employee. And individual details can be very important. Therefore, the interview with a profile specialist can be organized as a separate (independent) stage or conducted together. In this way, you will be able to cover a lot of narrow questions and potential mistakes.
Who recruits staff for the organization
Interviews should only be conducted by specially trained people. Usually, these are supervisors or individual managers of the human resources department (HR, personnel service), as well as managers of the services or departments for which the employee is being recruited.
The most effective interview scheme for companies:
- A common input filter for all inquiries (normally, if you have advertising campaigns you will receive a large inbound flow) in paper or electronic form, e.g. with questionnaires. It is logical to entrust it to ordinary HR specialists.
- Initial interviews and general testing based on the results of the most interesting and suitable questionnaires. It is best to entrust this process to the head of service or a separate responsible HR employee with experience.
- Subject interviews with the head of the department or service for which the employee is being hired. It is best if the final decision rests with the candidate’s future manager.
Conclusions and recommendations
We have told only general principles of how to select staff. A particular organization may have its own approaches and nuances. There is not and cannot be a universal solution. Too much depends on the specifics of the enterprise, the requirements for the position, and the policies dictated by senior managers and owners.
If you have already hired an employee who, as it turns out, doesn’t want to fit in and is only dragging the rest of the employees down, study our material — 5 tips on how to fire an employee gracefully.
By the way, Projecto makes it easy to set and control the process of any task, including search and recruitment, electronically. For more details, you can explore our demo.
