South African business owners often complain about the lack of skilled labour in this country. However, many do not realise the role that a below-par recruitment process plays in attracting and securing the wrong candidates. How can you avoid these costly hiring mistakes? Here’s how:
Step 1:
Your employees are the backbone of your business and recruiting the wrong candidates can destroy it. As a business owner, you continuously need to be on the lookout for talent as opposed to only recruiting when a gap or need arises.
You can make the recruitment process manageable by implementing a system which attracts a larger pool of applicants on the basis of who they are as well as what skills/abilities they have, and which allows them to deselect themselves in the early stages. This will get you off to the best start and will also inevitably save you time in the long run.
Step 2:
Most employers make the mistake of limiting the recruitment process in the beginning to make it ‘manageable’ and then sift potential employees based on skills and past experience as the first screen. While these are important, what is critical is the fit with your organisation’s culture.
So the second step is about shortlisting a person based on who they are as the primary prerequisite followed by their competencies – you can always teach skills but not disposition!
Step 3:
Have a clear plan of what needs doing in the business and who will do it. This provides you with an essential foundation for writing a clear job description which details explicitly the ‘what and how’ requirements of the role.
Step 4:
From there, the next step is to be different and design an ad that speaks to the type of person you envisage for role and not just what they need to do. Remember that this ad is as much a ‘marketing tool’ as a product/service ad is to a prospective customer; you want to compel talent to work for you rather than your competition!
Step 5:
Request that candidates fill out an application form which details why they think they are right for the job and why they want to work for you. Not only will this give you easily comparable information, but if you make this downloadable from your website, you’ll have the added advantage of boosting your Google rankings!
Interestingly many potential applicants will deselect themselves at this stage because they can’t be bothered to fill out a form – you’d be surprised how many!
Step 6:
Once you have vetted the applications according to the job description and type of person needed, the sixth step is about creating a shortlist of the best of the bunch and arranging a face-to-face interview where you ask questions designed to elicit examples of behaviour and not opinions.
You should follow an interview format suited for the role – for example interview your candidates in a group for a sales job where individuals need to demonstrate that they persuade better than others.
Step 7:
Before the final interview, talk to all the candidates’ previous employers. Start by verifying CV experience like job title, reason for leaving and salary and then ask if they’d re-employ the person. How this question gets answered will tell you a lot!
Step 8:
Invest in a dispositional test or personality profile to establish their ’fit’ to your business culture.
Step 9:
Discuss all of this in a final interview along with your offer regarding a package. I suggest that any questions about salary before this point are premature as the worth of the candidate and their level of interest in what you have to offer needs to be established before negotiating a salary.
Step 10:
Ensure you have a detailed contract in place which lists the role and responsibilities of the new employee and then to ’use’ this and your great job description to monitor and manage their performance.
Step 11:
Avoid dumping the new recruits into the deep end, rather set them up for success in their new job from the outset by taking the time to induct new employees properly – show them the ropes; introduce them to the team and customers; give them the manuals that detail how things get done.
Importantly, check in with them on how it’s going so that they can be glad they chose to work for you! Happy recruiting!