Your business is only as good as your employees.
Regardless of the kind of business you run, finding the perfect candidates is going to be at the top of your list. Recruiting the right employees can make or break your business. But finding the right talent is quite taxing. A minute mistake in this process can turn out to be a major setback in the progress of the company.
While skills and experience play major roles in the recruiting procedure, employers also look for responsible, hard-working people who have the potential to impact the companies positively. On top of that, with the soaring competition, it becomes a tad difficult to lure and retain talent.
With that thought, let’s take a look at some of the effective methods that you can implement in order to hire the right employees for your company.
Understand the Candidate’s Potential
While it is important for the candidate to possess the basic set of skills for the job, it is equally important to have the right personality. Skills can be acquired, but that is not the case with personality.
Harvard University, Stanford Research Institute, and Carnegie Foundation conducted a study that revealed that 85% of a job success including recruitment, retention and progress of the employee depends on people skills. This leaves only 15% room for technical skills and knowledge.
A positive attitude, excellent communication skills, an ability to make eye contact while conversing, a pleasant demeanor, an interest to learn new skills are what you should be looking for in your candidates.
According to Courtenay Carey, co-founder and director of The School of Etiquette, “As businesses mechanise and automate to take advantage of technological advancements, they also seek to re-mobilise human resources which are more easily adaptable to this new market”.
Be Clear About the Job Description
While most companies use standard job definitions, it is always advisable to include details pertaining to the vacancy at your company. Be very clear about what you are looking for.
The job description is an essential hiring tool. It signifies the knowledge, skills, abilities and expertise that the candidate requires in order to perform the job successfully. Articulate the tasks properly to avoid any confusion at a later stage. If need be, you can consider splitting the tasks into further categories so that the candidates know exactly what is being expected of them.
The worst thing that can happen is, hiring someone who is good at one aspect of a task and lacks the essential skills for the others. Therefore, you need to ensure that the candidate has a well-rounded experience in every aspect of the task.
Go Through Social Media Profiles
All employers conduct a quick background search on the potential employee. Even though the candidate’s polished behavior at the time of the interview may not reveal his/her true personality, the social media profile would.
With approximately 2 billion people on social media, there is a good chance that your prospective employees are active users.
How a person behaves on social media is an indication of how the person is and whether s/he will fit into the job profile. That being said, it is important to understand that companies should not use information gathered from social media to discriminate based on religious beliefs, age, ethnic background and so on.
Know What to Ask
Asking the right questions to the candidates is one of the best ways to figure out how suited they are for the job. While the usual questions will inform you about the candidates’ background and skill set, a little bit of creativity can serve the purpose of knowing about the candidates well.
Some of these questions could include the following:
- What is your perception of ‘hard work’?
- What was the biggest decision that you had to make last year? Why do you think it was so important?
- Tell me about your best and worst encounters with your colleagues in the previous organization. How did you handle the worst?
- If you were in a situation where you had a disagreement with your co-worker, what would you do?
That being said, keep in mind that certain questions are off-limits. For example, it is unlawful to ask about a candidate’s race, age, marital status and so on.
Your candidates will also have a lot of question on their minds and the interview should accommodate those.
“The best questions that candidates ask in an interview are the ones that they can’t get an answer to in other places”, global head of Human Capital Management and executive vice-president of Goldman Sachs explained, “An interview is really a two-way conversation. We are interviewing to figure out whether you’re the right candidate, but it also should also be an opportunity for someone to determine whether Goldman is the right place for them as well.
Offer Employee Perks
Hiring employees is a two-way street.
As difficult as it is to find talent, it is can be equally tricky to ensure that they choose you too. With scores of organizations looking for the perfect candidate, they are looking for effective ways to attract talent.
Why would a candidate choose your company over the others?
A working environment conducive to growth, a lucrative package and a few attractive employee benefits are some of the things that job-seekers look for. Some of these employee perks include health insurance, access to free WiFi, flexible working hours, paid leave, transportation and so on.
In a research conducted by Glassdoor, it was found that 57% of the people said that employee benefits and perks are one of the primary things they consider before accepting a job.
Did you know that Facebook provides $4000 in ‘Baby Cash’ to the employees with a newborn?
In addition to these, you should also check the references provided by the candidates. Trust your instincts, have a proven hiring strategy and come to terms with the fact that not all hires will work out, which is where the trial period comes into play. Invest enough time and effort to ensure that you have the right team that can lead your company to further profits.
Images: ”Yellow Office Folder with Inscription New Employees on Office Desktop with Office Supplies and Modern Laptop. New Employees Business Concept on Blurred Background. New Employees – Toned Image. 3D. / Shutterstock.com“
____________________________________________________________________________
Tweak Your Biz is a thought leader global publication and online business community. Today, it is part of the Small Biz Trends stable of websites and receives over 300,000 unique views per month. Would you like to write for us?
An outstanding title can increase tweets, Facebook Likes, and visitor traffic by 50% or more. Generate great titles for your articles and blog posts with the Tweak Your Biz Title Generator.
