8 Steps for Hiring Success 23 Oct 2017

A crucial part of any business is having the right people in the right places. It sounds simple enough, but as any manager or HR professional will tell you, finding someone who hits all the marks, from the right experience to the right temperament, is nothing short of a major challenge. It takes time and it takes money.

Because no candidate is the same, no job search is ever the same. Nonetheless, there are certain essential steps that every hiring manager should be sure to take. From drafting a job description to the employee screening, refresh yourself with this timeline of essential steps in the hiring process.

1. Know what you want. The first step in hiring the right person is to develop a precise and accurate job description to fill the need your company has. The challenge here is to turn a somewhat vague set of needs into a precise list of tasks the ideal candidate will perform and the relevant experience you’re looking for.
2. Draft the ad. Be sure to consult and workshop the job posting with the team or department that is hiring.
3. Get the ad in front of the right person. There is a science and an art to posting a “help wanted” ad. While you want to post to various online job board sites, be sure to also tap your contacts and recruiters who might personally know of an ideal candidate.
4. Preliminary screening. The blessing and curse of the internet is that it’s easier than ever to get a lot of qualified applications, but the challenge is how to sort through them and pick the people you want to go on to interview. On the first round of screenings, you should use a set of criteria — such as minimal years of experience — to whittle the number of applicants down to a manageable pool, such as 25 or 30.
5. Telephone interview. By helping you confirm whether the applicant has the required skills and experience, this step will help you to further narrow down your search.
6. The in-person interviews. While meeting with a candidate means he or she is qualified for the job (as should have been established in the telephone interview), meeting in-person allows you to assess whether their personality, style, and other intangibles would be a fit with the company.
7. Vetting. After the in-person interviews, you should have two or three candidates you’d like to extend an offer to, but before you do …
8. Employment background checks. Don’t skip this step. Even when you think you have the perfect fit, especially after a long search, it may be tempting to offer the job Human Resources to the “right” candidate. By making employee background checks a standard part of your hiring practice, you can be doubly sure that you are making the right choice by investing in this hire.

If the results from the background check come back and everything looks good, you’ll be in a position where you can confidently extend an offer of employment to the candidate. If they accept, congratulate yourself! You just went through an intensive process and having followed the above steps, you can be reasonably confident that you hired the right person.