Sometimes it seems that in hiring, as with many things in life, things come in like a storm! Everything seems to be humming along nicely then one day you get notice that one of your key managers has decided to leave the company to take a new step in his career path. A couple of days later, as a result of your strategic planning session, it is determined that you need to create a new position and hire someone to fill it. The next day your Office Manager reminds you that she is only one month away from her maternity leave and someone needs to be broght in to cover for the six months that she will be out. Now you are not only handling your day-to-day responsibilities but you are also tasked with filling all of these positions - now! Did you prepare for this storm?
Employee recruiting and ultimately employee selection are part of business and (good and bad!) doing this effectively takes time and energy. I don't know about you, but it is sometimes hard for me to see the calm before the storm and organizational planning is the key being able to experience that calm. This involves having an effective recruiting plan in place so that you are ready for the storms!
Perhaps you find yourself in the midst of the calm right now - good for you - but do not be caught off guard because it is very likely that there is a storm just around the corner!!
I am working with a client in helping them to fill a key management position within their organization. One element of this particular search is that there are members of the team who have been with the company for a period of time who are interested in this opportunity. This is a not-so-unique challenge that hiring managers face when key positions become available - do we promote someone from within because they have earned it by putting in their time? The way this particular client chose to handle the situation is unique. Rather than just "giving" the position to an internal person they opted to have these individuals go through the same assessment and selection process that other candidates are going through. This means that the resumes of those internal candidates came into my inbox just like everyone else's and even I did not have a heads up that the internal candidates were interested! I found this to be a particularly interesting piece of the client's recruiting strategy. It allowed all candidates to be placed on the same playing field and all of them were put through the same applicant screening process. It may not seem unique but even though a best hiring practice is to hire the best person for the job sometimes hiring managers settle for the "best I've got" right now. They take this approach in order to take the hiring project off of their plate and move on to new and usually more exciting things. Hats off to those hiring managers and companies who take hiring seriously enough to make sure that the person they bring in to a key position fits well with the bigger picture of their organizational alignment.
When it comes to identifying sources for quality candidates, it is important to start with the basics. Look at the sources you have at your fingertips! Your professional network is one of the most important sources you can tap into. What would be better than finding a candidate who comes with a recommendation from someone with whom you are already acquainted! Looking for potential candidates within your professional network can be as simple as announcing the position through your social media outlets - LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, etc.
Utilizing this strategy and coupling it with the applicant screening resources available to you through Advisa Hiring can be a very effective recruiting strategy. This two-pronged approach is effective for identifying candidates who may be qualified and it also equalizes the playing field so that all candidates no matter where they come from are looked at through the same lens. From a management side, the partnership allows you to get the word out about your open position but the pressure is off because Advisa Hiring does the candidates screening for you and we are able to be the buffer in those cases where someone who is referred through your professional network is not the right fit for the position. It is a win-win all around. Next time you have a position to fill look at who you already know and then partner with us to do the rest! Happy Hiring!
Before the time comes to fill a position - any position - within your organization it is important to get your 
ducks in a row before you just jump right in. The ducks to which I am referring have to do with the important pieces you need to have in place before launching a search to fill a vacancy. The first "duck" to have in place is a job description that effectively captures the job you need someone to do today. Many times Hiring Managers continue to work from a job description that was created years ago and as with most positions the duties of the position have evolved to a point where the original job description does not look much like the job that you need to have done today to effectively achieve organizational alignment. The second "duck" is to have an effective applicant screening process in place to identify benchmarks necessary for candidates to meet in order to successfully do the job you need them to do. Whether you partner with the Advisa Hiring team to help with this piece or you do this on your own it is important to make sure candidates not only have the type of experience that is necessary for the job but they also need to fit in with the culture of your company and the job itself needs to motivate employees to be the best they can be. In the end, having your ducks in a row will not only help you to hire the right candidate, it will also make the process more simple for hiring managers and prove to be helpful for engaging employees because you will have taken steps to make sure they are the right person for the job. This is one of the best hiring practices you can follow to ensure the search process runs smoothly.
Putting into words exactly what a job involves seems like a daunting task from the get go but in actuality creating an accurate and usable job description is really just capturing what you already know. We are starting on a new project with a client that involves refreshing the job descriptions they use for current positions as part of an organizational planning they are undertaking. We are starting with the job descriptions they already have in place and then walking through with each manager what it is that employees who hold a particular position are doing every day. Sounds simple enough but getting hiring managers to think about this piece is so simple it can often be overlooked. We help them take the existing job description and mesh this together with what is uncovered during the conversation about what current employees are already doing in the job and help them to come up with a job description that more accurately reflects what the job is. From there, our client will take these new job descriptions and role them out internally across the board in an effort to achieve organizational alignment in this area. The ultimate goal of this project for our client will not only be organizational alignment but also more engaged employees and higher employee productivity. People want to know what is expected of them in their job and the best way to communicate this to them is through an accurate job description that communicates just that.
As we go through life it is amazing to realize along the way just how many things intertwine and come back around - sometimes to haunt us but more often to remind us or to further enlighten us. This recently came to me when a friend found this blog and sent an email comment about the content. This individual was (jokingly!) asking if we provide personal training sessions on best hiring practices in the area of marriage!! At first I laughed but as I thought more about this particular individual's situation it made sense. I re-read a blog post by our company President, Bob Wilson, that spoke to this issue and told a quite lovely story about the process he and his now wife went through before taking the plunge into marriage. Pre-marriage planning can be a lot like career pathing - where do you want to be 5, 10, 20 years from now and what steps are necessary for you to take in order to get there? This includes not only hitting benchmarks but also gauging how things are running in between those benchmarks along the way. Unfortunately for my friend, we at Advisa do not provide personal consulting on the hiring/marriage puzzle but we as consultants and advisors do draw upon the things we have learned over the years and even more importantly we continue to learn and look at how we can apply various situations - business and personal - to our own lives and in turn we share this information with our clients when appropriate.
When it comes to best hiring practices the "right" thing to do is often times learned from the mistakes we make along the way. Whether it is not putting candidate screening systems in place on the front end, not making time to do the leg work necessary to hire the right person, not pulling the trigger soon enough (. . . and the list goes on!) it can all seem very confusing and even tricky! Couple all of these pieces of the puzzle with the fact that many times key hires do not involve an HR Manager but rather fall on the shoulders of hiring managers who are primarily focused on running the business at hand. As with any puzzle, rather than getting frustrated and/or overwhelmed, remember that the key to success in the end is to focus on one area and put one piece in at a time!
We had the unfortunate situation come up this week in which a client really liked a candiadate for a position but because of a delay in the timing of communicating this to the candidate, the candidate accepted another opportunity. Ugh! A good one got away!
This reminds me of a time last summer when my then 9-year-old son was fishing in a local pond. He may or may not have been convinced that he would ever catch a fish, so he didn't really plan on "next steps" in the event that this actually occured! Well, as luck would have it a fish did bite and it was a big one; but because he did not plan in advance, he did not know what to do once it actually took the bait. It got away. He didn't act swifly enough to actually catch the fish and reap the benefits of such a feat! This was very disheartening for him as you can imagine.
The same was true for the client/candidate situation mentioned above. Unfortunately, timing is everything and not being able to respond swiftly when you find a candiate who matches what you are targeting often times leads to losing them to another company. It is very disheartening for a hiring manager to think they might have a position filled only to find out that by waiting or even just hesitating that candidate moves on to another opportunity.
All of the candidate screening processes in the world will not guarantee a good hire for a particular position within your organization unless you have put into your organizational planning the action steps needed in the event that you find the right candidate for the job. In addition to identifying when a new hire is necessary and taking the steps to effectively screen candidates for the position you should also include in your best hiring practices a plan to actually move a candidate through the selection process quickly!
With real estate the old adage is location, location, location. Wiith hiring the adage may just be "timing is everyting" - especially if you want to avoid letting one get away!
One area that managers are always held accountable for is a budget, right? As a manager have you ever given thought to the cost of making the wrong hire for a position? I talked with a client last week who learned this lesson the hard way - they hired someone for a key position within their organization who had worked with them in a consluting capacity and at the time it seemed like a natural transition. Now, two years and thousands of dollars (and many headaches!) later they realize that investing the time and money on the front end to make the right hire would have served them well. Best hiring practices such as utilizing a strong candidate screening and assessment program as part of your recruiting strategy will go a long way. This will not only help avoid spending money on a salary for the wrong person but also help to avoid the problem of managing difficult behaviors that come out of making the wrong hire. It's your money . . . you decide what makes the most sense for you and your organization!
Today's business environment is busier than ever and hiring is no exception! We frequently run into situations where it is evident that even though making a new hire is important it often does not make it to "urgent" status until it is almost too late to be effectively managed. This is true for both replacement and newly created positions.
With employee recruiting, finding the time to simply post an ad and look at a few of the resumes that come in is tough enough let alone adding hiring assessments and interviews to the list! At ADVISA we realize this struggle and in an effort to always look out for the best interest of our clients, we advise companies to have a strong selection policy created in advance to avoid the situation described above. This will help hiring managers avoid the trap of hiring the
first qualified candidate for a position and allow them to have systems in place that will enable them to hire the
best qualified candidate. Doing this takes some time up front but it is definitely worth it in the end and will ensure long-term success for the company, the hiring manager and the new hire.
When it comes to best hiring practices your best bet is to be consistent. Personnel selection itself presents enough challenges and by maintaining consistency in the process used for candidate selection you can avoid curve balls along the way.
Take a scenario that I was recently presented with in working with a client. The typical selection process for this client was to vet resumes, send prescreening information to those candidates who looked to be most qualified, further screen select candidates through a phone interview using behavioral interview questions and then narrow down the pool to only the top candidates for the position to bring in for in-person interviews.
With one candidate who was being considered, the hiring manager after reviewing the candidate's prescreening information thought it might be best to check the candidate's references before spending the time doing a phone interview. Did you catch the curve ball? Curve balls create questions on our side and on the part of those candidates who are being considered for an opportunity. In order to most effectively compare candidates you are considering for a position the steps you take each candidate through must be consistent. This allows you to compare apples to apples and make the best hiring decision possible.
In the end, this client decided against checking references at this early stage of the game and instead put this candidate through the same steps that others had gone through. The end result? The process is moving forward and this candidate is being evaluated fairly against the other candidates up for consideration.
The rule of thumb to remember in assessment and selection of candidates for a position is be consistent!!
Is Candidate Screening a way to "catch" a candidate doing something wrong or to identify what they do well? When the question is asked the latter answer may
seem obvious but often times we confuse pre-employment assessment as merely a way to "weed" out those candidates who may not be fit for a job.
We should rather look at candidate screening as a step in our hiring practice to uncover those candidates who are the
best fit for what we are targeting. Hiring Managers can get caught up in how a candidate does
not fit and automatically eliminate someone prematurely. If the focus is put on how a candidate does not fit we may miss out on a good hire because we cannot see the forest for the trees. When I am talking with clients about a candidate, I like to analogize looking at a candidate as a whole pie rather than just a slice - not my idea but something I have picked up over the years that I think paints a good picture. This is not to say that it is a good idea to allow rotten fruit into your organization but a more positive approach to ensuring that we do not overlook someone who in the long run could be just the person we need! The goal of hiring managers should simply be to put a selection policy in place that focuses on hiring the right candidate for a job.
Believe it or not the idea of engaging employees in their work is something that should be considered even before your hire someone for a position! That's right - giving some thought to the specific requirements of a job and matching these to what motivates an employee are the first steps to ensuring that an employee is engaged in his/her work. Who would even apply for a job that does not seem interesting to them and look to meet their needs? No one!
The easiest way to do this as a hiring manager is to put energy in on the front end to identify the functions of a job that are necessary to the job and then using an effective personality assessment to identify those candidates who are the
best fit for that position. Making a personality assessment part of your recruiting strategy can go a long way in making personnel selection easier for you as a hiring manager and making sure that the person who is hired for a job is engaged when they walk in the door!!
For more information on using personality assessments in your hiring please click on the link below . . . I think you'll be glad you did and so will your future employees!
Hiring Managers are often faced with not only the challenge of having to hire for a position but also all of the many pieces that go in to this puzzle. Once an ad is posted and the resumes start rolling in is when the real challenge begins! Effective candidate screening is a best hiring practice for helping hiring managers navigate this complicated puzzle of hiring and a proven and effective hiring assessment is key. For some people the mere mention of a hiring assessment causes them to scratch their heads and ask "What?"!! Getting a large (or small) quantity of resumes really does not even scratch the surface of knowing which candidates fit best in to the position
you need to fill. Hiring managers reach a point of "What do I do now?" and how this question is answered or not answered can make all the difference not only for getting the position filled but more importantly getting the position filled with the right candidate. Assessment and selection really go hand-in-hand with successful hiring. If you would like to learn more about how hiring assessments can be an effective tool for you in the puzzle we call hiring please join our Hiring Manager, Dana Harrison, on March 30th to learn more! We would love to help you put the pieces of the puzzle together!
Personality Assessments in Hiring - What?
In talking with a candidate this week he made mention of how much the job market has changed since he was last in a position to look for employment. He told me of a time when all he had to do was mail in a resume, call the company in follow-up within a week, come in for an interview and be offered a position. That is not the case today!! If you or someone you know has been in a position to search for a job recently you have found this out first hand.
Today companies are becoming much more savvy about not only filling a position but making sure that the person who is hired for the position is a good fit. Best hiring practices today include hiring assessments that have proven to be very successful in not only matching an employee to a company but also matching the company to an employee. The world of hiring is tricky enough so good managers need to utilize all of their available resources to make sure that they are hiring the right people.
If you are unfamiliar with the practice of using personality assessments in hiring I strongly suggest that you take some time to familiarize yourself with it. Today's reality is that savvy candidates are; and they want to know that the next position they take is a good fit for them as much as it is a good fit for the company.
To learn more reserve your spot in an enlightening webinar that will highlight the benefits of using personality assessments in hiring. It is an investment of a short amount of time that will pay off tenfold in the future.
The circumstances surrounding a particular situation impact how we view any business decision. In the area of hiring, the need to fill a position can be evidence that the next step in your process of strategic planning has been reached and business is moving forward. Thus an "Ah, Hiring!" feeling is achieved.
In contrast to the "Ah, Hiring!" ideal situation described above, the opposite can also be true in situations where a hire that has not been planned for has to be made. In these situations, the need to fill a key position (which in most companies today is any position!) can be seen as yet another step backwards in trying to move the business along. It is in these times of panic mode where the recruiting strategy often becomes a "hire anyone now" plan that in the end does not prove to be successful. Thus, the feeling of "Argh, Hiring" sets in.
Being able to determine the best time to make a critical hire for your company is one of the many benefits of strategic planning and is a best hiring practice that all managers and HR personnel strive for. While it is true that not all of our hiring can be of the "Ah, Hiring" variety it should be the goal to make sure systems are in place so that "Argh, Hiring" scenario is the exception rather than the rule.
Among my colleagues at Advisa who are experts in motivation, employee retention programs, promoting employees and more, I fit in as one with expertise on finding great candidates and making hires. In this, my first blog post, I’d like to share with you a little insight as the third-party who has worked with hundreds of hiring managers over the past eight years.
A best hiring practice that I am frequently reminded of with clients is to hire the right candidate once you find him or her. In other words, don’t wait to see if there is one more candidate out there who is a tiny bit better. This is not settling, but rather realizing that at some point you have to pull the trigger and make the hire. In my experience there seems to be, among hiring managers, the idea that in order to make a good hire you have to have more than one great candidate to choose from. This is simply not the case. A good hire is someone who can effectively do the job you want them to do, someone who fits within your company culture and someone who can enjoy their work and your company. This is simplified, of course, but overall I think rather than looking for "the one," hiring managers are better served looking for a good mix of the "right stuff.”
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