How do you hire the best person for a role each and every time?

recruitment

In this post I’m going to outline how to consistently hire the best person for any role.

Warning: this process can save you a lot of time and money!

Why is this important?

Because traditional approaches such as asking for CVs and Cover Letters and then manually screening these and carrying out interviews is only at best 20% reliable. It’s largely a risky guessing game in disguise!

And, it’s hugely time consuming!

In the past few months I’ve also heard so much about how current recruitment processes aren’t working, from panel interviews that display Unconscious Bias to putting the wrong person in the wrong job so they end up failing or at best suffering, with many reputations ruined along the way. The list of woes goes on and on…

Despite the introduction of sexy web-based tools, the underlying processes being used by many organisations are deeply flawed and are contributing to and exacerbating the problem. Through the methodology outlined below I’ll explain how to address and mitigate these problems, and at the same time hire the Best People.

Welcome to Hiring Heaven!

Step 1 - Define Job Criteria

Whilst a Job Description is useful here, this is not just about creating a Job Description, which you would expect any recruiter or hiring managers to do. Sometimes there is no distinction made between the Internal Document which is the Job Specification that specifies the Skills/Talent/Behavioural Factors that the hiring manager is looking for and the criteria that s/he will hire against versus the External Document, which is the Job Description the purpose of which is largely to attract candidates and convince them to apply.

So, by not differentiating between the two documents, you can end up posting the Job Specification in adverts and job boards as a Job Description!

Not a Good idea!

But, you might now be saying: "I don’t have time to create 2 documents!”

Help is at hand...

The most useful, efficient and effective thing to do is to create a Job Success Formula that specifies 2 key things:

Eligibility Factors- certifications, experience, qualifications, etc…

Suitability Factors- those behavioural traits which determine whether someone has the Talent to do the job well.

To do this you need a Job Success Formula template that is based on research into what behavioural traits distinguish High Performers in that specific role from average or low performers. This Job Success Formula effectively gives you your internal Job Specification.

Apart from the Eligibility Factors that can be weighted in degrees of importance so you don’t miss a talented candidate just because they have 4.5 years instead of 5 years experience, you need to specify the Suitability Factors as follows:

Essential Traits for this specific Job
Desirable Traits for this specific Job
Traits to Avoid for this specific Job

Otherwise, you run the risk of making serious and costly errors.

Using a Work Preferences Behavioural Questionnaire and comparing the data this gathers to a Job Success Formula means that you can create a range of useful data-driven reports such as a Job Success Analysis, an Interview Guide, a How to Attract this Candidate Guide, which become highly useful later in the process.

Step 2 - Get Buy In

In this step you get Buy In from Stakeholders, such as the hiring manager and perhaps his or her boss and others who will be involved in interviewing the shortlisted candidates. To do this effectively you use the Job Success Formula because it gives you an objective data-driven starting point. By getting approval of the Job Success Formula and Stakeholder Buy-In up front you avoid costly discussions, disagreements and problems later on. This is especially important if you are using a panel or multi-interview approach.

Step 3 - Post the Job Description Online

When you have a digitally created Job Success Formula, all you have to do is to post the Job Description with a link to an Online Screening Tool that includes the Work Preferences Behavioural Questions.

Step 4 - Prescreen Applicants

With an online screening tool you can quickly, efficiently and effectively screen all potential candidates against your Eligibility and Suitability hiring factors. With the right tool you can even screen for Quantitative Critical Thinking skills at the same time.

Candidates will spend no more than 30 minutes going through the online pre-screening process. This in itself will ensure that only those who are truly interested and who meet your requirements will be prepared to complete the application process.

It’s important to note that up until this point you do not need to wade through hundreds of CVs and Cover Letters. We'll get to these in Step 5.

All this is happening whilst you go about your daily work. Thus saving you lots of time and money.

Step 5 - Shortlist the Best Candidates

With the right tools you get an online dashboard with all candidates ranked according to their Eligibility and Suitability scores. This means you can easily see and decide which candidates you want to shortlist and to interview. I recommend that you start with the Top 10.

Once you’ve created your first version of your Shortlist you now go through the CVs and Cover Letters of those who are most likely to fit the job. By the way, your tool should have stored the CVs and Cover Letters for you online (linked to each candidate’s score) so this is quite an easy process.

You now can invite your shortlisted candidates to join the interview process. For the other candidates, you can decide whether to send them a holding letter for now or you can notify them that you will be going no further with their application. All this can be done automatically and you can also use this opportunity to enhance your Employer Brand.

Step 6 - Explore Mutual Benefits

I’ve deliberately called this an exploration of mutual benefits instead of an interview for a reason. Given the tools and information that you now have at your disposal, you know that all those people that you will interview have a profile consistent with High Performers in this role. So, your odds of selecting the right person are now closer to 90% than with traditional methods. Therefore, you will use this opportunity to explore whether these people truly fit with your culture and are people that you want to have around you every day. Thereby, closing the remaining 10% gap.

To help you ensure that you don’t miss anything important during this “interview” process the system should give you an Interview Guide that highlights how each person fits the job specification and which areas that you need to explore with them, particularly where there might be some reservations or potential blind spots. An Interview Guide that is based on the results of the Job Success Analysis can provide you with the appropriate questions to ask so that you can reassure yourself that What You See Is What You’ll Get (WYSIWYG)!

Step 7 - Convince the Best Candidate

How often have you come to the end of a round of interviews only to find that your preferred candidate has more than one job offer? This can seriously throw a “spanner in the works”!

However, what if there was a way to mitigate this for mutual gain?

With a comprehensive recruitment tool you can avail of a “How to Attract this Candidate” report that enables you to have an informed conversation with your preferred candidate that is as much about how they fit the role and how this job will satisfy things such as their core values and their work preferences as it is about the money. Used with integrity, this can be the critical element that means you get your preferred person.

Step 8 - Set Onboarding Expectations

It’s well established that as many as 40% of people leave jobs within the first 3 months due to poor on-boarding practices. Therefore, all that effort on your part will have been in vain.

What if you had a way to measure, discuss and agree the new hire's expectations and also how to create a “win-win” start to your working relationship?

At this stage having a report such as “How to Manage, Develop and Retain” a new hire can be critically important. Also, imagine having access to the Top Factors that will engage your new colleague through an Engagement and Retention report?

All this is possible with the right tools.

How do I get these Tools?

The Talent Analytics Toolbox that does all of the above and much more has been created by the folks at Harrison Assessments. At Wide Circle we are working with these tools with our clients since 2014 with considerable success.

The entire approach is automated and can also provide you with:

A Library of 6500 research-based Job Success Formulas to choose from
The option to customise each of these 6500 Job Success Formulas to your specific needs
The option to do a Benchmarking to create your own culture-specific Job Success Formula for any role

Your Return on Investment

The Harrison Tools are extremely economical to use. And, if you’re expecting, or would like, a large number of applicants for a role without it costing you an arm and a leg then we can offer you JobFlix.

To truly know whether these tools are going to provide you with better value you need to test them out for yourself.

You can test them for FREE here.

Contact us to arrange a DEMO...

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