If you want better employees, you need to hire better. We do not find the right people because we think about hiring only to fill needs.
Hiring to fill a need misses the the key issue – culture. That leads to picking people that do not share your values. And that may lead to mis-hires. Mis-hires cost you money, time and all too often customers. The wrong people disrupt the workplace and waste valuable training time. Then you spend more time trying to fix the problem. Change the way you look for people to help your businesses grow. The first step is – Hire the right people! This might seem obvious. Yet hiring managers tend to focus on finding technical skills and experience. It is rare that there is any assessment of a candidate’s values and behavioral preferences relating to work. Attention must be paid to understanding:
• How the candidate will impact customers
• How will they work with current employees
• Does the candidate share the organization’s values
• Will this candidate grow and contribute as the company grows
In my experience, most recruitment campaigns focus solely on assessing candidates “eligibility” for a position. Eligibility is the education, skills, qualifications and relevant experience a candidate has. What is often overlooked is a candidate’s “suitability” for a position. Suitability is interests, work preferences, work values, interpersonal skills, attitudes and motivations. Suitability is not easy to determine from a resume. Most often, people trying to “fill” a job make no effort to assess candidates “suitability”. If suitability assessments are attempted, it may only be done through the “gut feel” of an interviewer.
So, in a recent hire, my client hired someone with over 15 years’ experience in a sales role. They hired without checking for cultural fit. Just three weeks later, they had to repeat the process when the candidate failed miserably.
There are reliable and accurate measuring systems that can help assess candidate suitability. These assessments are relatively inexpensive and quick to use, when considered against the cost and disruption of making a poor recruitment decision. Recruitment of any new position, internal, or external, should use an accurate, reliable and valid assessment process.