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How to Structure Your Hiring Process
April 27, 2007
How many times have you ended up hiring an employee who you knew wasn’t quite right for the job but your gut feeling told you to give them a shot? Sometimes it works out – and sometimes it’s disastrous. With a little strategic thought and some careful preparation, you can prevent giving in to gut feel alone. Here’s how:
- Know what you are looking for and stick to it.
Remember SAKE. Not the drink (at least not before 6pm) but SKILLS, ATTITUDE, KNOWLEDGE, EXPERIENCE.
-Skills – interpersonal, selling, customer service, problem solving
-Attitude –solution focus, personal responsibility, friendliness, team player
-Knowledge – of the market, industry, trends, your products and services
-Experience – the relevance, length and level of experience required.
- Create a robust, fully rounded selection process that resembles this:
-Telephone screen ONLY those with suitable resumes.
-Hold at least one in-person interview, in a quiet spot, away from ‘the action’
-Have select colleagues or your team interview the candidates too
-Role play / Simulation : this can be a day long if you really want to test skills
-Test their technical abilities / Math etc on the register and at the counter
-Compare notes with colleagues and employees before you make any decisions: they will almost always spot things you missed, good and bad.
- Make the most of your interview time and be prepared.
The most common mistake is interview-lite. We’re not sure what to ask so we wing it and make a decision on gut feeling, hoping for the best. If you’re psychic this might work well for you – the rest of us should prepare questions probing the following:
-Motivation : What motivates you to want to work here vs anywhere else?
-Understanding : What do you see as the role of <JOB>in a store like this?
-Employment History: I see you’ve had 5 jobs in 2 years – talk me through what led you to leave each of those jobs.
-Knowledge: What’s going on in our industry right now that you think our customers want to know about? What trade journals do you read? What do you think about <CURRENT issue industry>?
-Experience: Tell me how you think your experience lines up with the requirements of this job.
-Flexibility – Tell me about a time when you’ve had to think on your feet and solve a problem without the help of someone more senior.
-Skills – Tell me about your strengths and a couple of examples of how you have put them to use in a work situation.
-Personal Responsibility – Tell me about a time when it all went wrong for you at work. What did you do to contribute to the situation? How was it resolved? What did you learn from the experience?
-Passion – What kind of contribution would you hope to make to the team here? Tell me why you think we should hire you vs someone else.
- Be consistent in the process.
Don’t let the Halo / Horns effect take hold so early in the interview process that you dump the questions and wing it. Make sure you’re comparing apples with apples and giving everyone a fair shot by sticking to the same questions and process each time.
- Remember – You’re being interviewed too!
It’s likely that the candidate is interviewing elsewhere too – are you representing yourself and your company in a positive and authentic light? If you were this person – would you take the job?
- Take detailed notes.
Keep them factual, not judgmental. You will need them later.
- Be prepared to start all over.
If you’re not finding what you want, the temptation can be to hire the best of a bad bunch. That’s almost always a mistake. Remember, it’s a timing game. It’s all about who’s available when you start looking. Put another ad on Craigslist and start again if you have to.
- Check References.
But only every time. And run a background check too.
- Extend an offer in person or over the phone in the first instance– not by email.
If they accept, follow it up in writing.
- Give a great orientation – do everything you can to set your new employee up for success and make them feel welcome. Involve the team in it too.
Putting structure into your hiring process like this will pay dividends over the long term – once you’ve put the process together, you can use it every time you recruit. Gut feeling is still a good thing – but it’s amazing how a few facts and examples can change that.
Posted by Alan Ibbotson on April 27, 2007 | Comments (0)
