How to recruit effectively? We keep hiring people who leave us in the first year, either of their own accord or we have to let them go as they’re not quite right for the job or company. What measures can we put in place to make sure we get it right from now on?
Research in the HR field has revealed that a poorly organised recruitment and interview process is no more likely to produce a good result than choosing a candidate at random. That’s a pretty sobering thought.
With such busy workloads, it’s common for employers to fail to devote enough time to their recruitment activities. However, choosing the wrong candidate can cost a business thousands of pounds in money, time and lost productivity, so it really is worth preparing properly.
We’d recommend that you look at the following measures:
- Construct accurate and well informed job descriptions
- Communicate why people might want to work for the company
- Think about the core competencies the successful post holder will need
- Devise relevant and competency based interview questions
- Use some kind of scoring mechanism to select the best candidate.
What’s the easiest way of achieving these measures?
You could use an HR consultancy such as ours to undertake these activities for you. If you prefer to handle it yourself, start by analysing the job description in question. Does it reflect what the employee does on a day-to-day basis? Does it properly describe the position’s responsibilities? And do the skills, qualifications and experience required match the demands of the role?
Alongside the job description, you should think about the competencies that are needed by the jobholder. You should be able to get some inspiration from similar posts advertised online but there are a number of key competencies that crop up in most roles:
- Communications skills – be specific about which kind you need e.g. ability to write reports, interpersonal skills, presentation skills
- Teamwork – how people get on with their colleagues and contribute to team success
- Initiative – this can also be covered by problem solving abilities or skills in developing new ways of working
- Management skills (for supervisory posts) – some employers prefer to emphasise a particular aspect, such as motivating or directing staff
You should also specify any skills and experience that you need the jobholder to have when they start with you. For example, an account manager in an advertising agency will very probably need account management skills, and the ability to juggle multiple deadlines.
How do these apply to dealing with candidates?
All of this information should heavily influence how you write your job advertisement, select candidates and construct interview questions.
When sifting through CVs, look for evidence of the skills, experience and competencies that you have specified. We’d recommend that you draw up a simple table and either give each candidate a tick or a score if they have provided information on each requirement. Not only will this reduce the risk of selecting by first impression, but also it will significantly improve your ability to choose candidates who are a proper match for the position. Naturally, the candidates with the most ticks or points should be interviewed. It’s not a scientific process but it does improve the effectiveness of recruitment procedures and offers a clear justification for the choices you make.
And at interview?
Taking this forward to interview, you should also base your questions on the list of competencies that you prepared. It’s perfectly fine to ask candidates about their employment history but, by and large, you should ask the same question of each candidate so that you can compare their interview performances. The best interview questions combine competencies with past behaviour as follows:
- Can you describe a time when you had to gain co-operation from other team members to get the result you wanted?
- What kind of communication methods have you used in previous jobs to get your message across?
- Please tell us how you have used Microsoft Word and Excel in the past.
By being specific, you will receive better information from the candidates. Again, we’d recommend that you take notes and use a simple scoring process to judge who the best candidate is. Follow these procedures and you will recruit more relevant and qualified people into your business.
