Employees are the heart and soul of a company, and choosing them is the most important decision a manager makes. It’s vital to go into the recruitment process with a clear plan of what the business should be and how the employee fits into it.
The interview is the last part of the process to be held and the last one to worry about. The groundwork for hiring the best people needs to be created much earlier and it should rely on the corporate culture you’ve nurtured and an HR team that understands the needs of the company as well as the employees.
A career path
It’s important to realize that for an employee, work isn’t just a job, but a career, meaning something that’s a part of a larger plan. The ability to move up on the ladder of a corporation is often more important than the size of the paycheck.
An HR team should outline a clear career path and how to move on it, and it should find employees whose plans and aspirations are similar to the plan. This also makes the day-to-day working environment less stressful, because everyone will know where they stand in terms of promotions and rewards.
Focus on problem solving
Very often job interviews focus on identity and trying to figure out whether the company and the employee are a match in this regard. This is important, but it isn’t what the job is about. Instead, it’s best to create a questionnaire that showcases the problem solving needed for the job.
Employees often don’t like probation periods and job interviews that take weeks, but sometimes this is necessary to figure out how an employee is working under actual pressure.
A background check
Businesses that work with cash or those that handle large amounts of other people’s money can never be careful enough when it comes to their employees’ background. The first step towards establishing trust is to get a police clearance certificate that proves that the potential employee isn’t under investigation.
It’s also a good idea to ask around with previous employers in order to get a better understanding of how the worker is dealing with team environments. It isn’t enough to know if they were fired and why. You need to go in depth if you want the HR team to be prepared for the interview and to focus on what makes the employee and the company more productive.
Insider recommendation
A lot of the times businesses don’t feel comfortable with insider recommendations, because they see it as favoritism or not giving a chance to everyone who deserves it. Recommendations that come from your own employees or your peers in other companies can, however, be quite valuable because in these cases, there’s a higher chance to find someone who fits in with the corporate culture.
However, even those who come thanks to recommendations should go through all the tests and all the elimination processes other potential employees go through as well. That way no one feels underappreciated and you get an opportunity to impose your own expectation on the candidate.
Finding a good employee takes time and effort. It helps if you know what you’re looking for and if you have a selection system in place.