Finally we arrive at the last instalment of this series of common mistakes people make when hiring. In the previous blogs I have discussed many issues that cost a lot of time and money for business owners, managers and HR people. I highly suggest reading the previous articles to give you more insight into what not to do and how it will help your bottom line.
This is the whole list of the seven part series on what NOT TO DO when hiring a new staff member:
1. Making the job ad too good to be true.
2. Focussing on education, “experience” and other wastes of time.
3. Listening but not looking.
4. Let’s find someone just like me!
5. Making personality a priority.
6. Not reference checking.
7. Losing the right candidate by not acting fast enough.
THE SEVENTH DEADLY SIN: Losing the right candidate by not acting fast enough.
It is sometimes a long process to find a candidate you are really confident about but when you do, make sure you get her signed up ASAP.
You rarely find an amazing performer between jobs for very long. These people are so productive that you’ll find they get job offers practically every week even while they are working and so they have incredible choices in terms of job opportunities. This is one reason why moving fast when hiring is so important.
The other thing is that if you find a really productive person, they usually want to get the results right now, if not sooner! So if you leave them waiting, they will sometimes interpret this, either rightly or wrongly, as the company being indecisive and not results orientated or will have found a job in the meantime. Of course, some interview processes can take months especially for hiring executive positions, however, if the interview techniques are highly honed this need not be the case.
I’ve known companies which have long drawn out interview processes and usually they receive no more vital information than an expertly executed process that takes a month from job ad to induction. To get all the necessary information it does not need to take a long time and really all you want to know if this person will get you results. You will notice that people in the top of their field tend to get high quality results fast. I would like to emphasise that speed should not be put ahead of quality, however, when the process is done expertly and precisely you will find that you can get a high quality result in a relatively short time.
All the information you need to know about a candidate is:
1. Ability to get good results in a viable volume (primary)
2. Personality
- Fit to the position (You don’t want a sales person who hates people)
- Ability to work in the group and fit with the culture
- How long they will stay with the company
3. Motivation
- Are they motivated by money or results
4. Knowledge
- Are they qualified and have the skill set to do the job (please note we are talking about ability to apply, not necessarily just some piece of paper which says “certified”)
You’ll notice that results are number 1. If you have read along with the previous articles you know there is no use hiring someone who gets along with the others and has the skills for the job if she doesn’t end up getting the result at the end of the day. If I hire a builder, I don’t care how much of a great and skilled person she is if she doesn’t build enough houses to make her viable (ie if I pay her 50k a year, I’m going to lose money if she only builds 50k worth of a house in that time). So the first thing you can do is screen out unproductive people.
Obviously having experience in the area you are hiring can be an advantage, and in some fields (such as a doctor, engineer etc) is vital and you can screen out the basic necessities pretty rapidly in a short phone call or looking at their resume. However, in many instances what you really want to do is reduce the pile of candidates to only those who are productive. At Performia we use an interview, which allows you to know with certainty whether this person is able to get results in 15 minutes or less (if you are interested I can get you a ticket to a free seminar which shows you how to do this). Once you have this information and can see whether the person is productive, it is just a matter of seeing their fit to the job and whether they have the skills to get the job done and this again can be a simple process which I can go into detail in a later blog.
So you can see that the entire process can be accurate while being relatively short. When you can get the information you need quickly and accurately, you won’t risk losing the right candidate because of acting too slowly and the entire hiring process itself can be shorter and more cost effective.
Alexander Bell
National Course Supervisor
Performia Australia
alex@performia.com.au
Ph: 1800 603 023
©2011 Performia Australia Pty Ltd. All Rights Reserved.
Performia Australiais part of an international business that are experts on helping business owners and managers know how to get the best results from their staff as well as recruit the most productive people to business.
Build Your Team is a revolutionary course which allows business to get more productivity from their staff and hire people who will they know will be exceptional performers.