How to Recruit Great Staff

Many business managers dread the employment process. The pressures of finding and selecting the ‘right’ employee are great. Small to medium sized enterprises (SME’s) most often run lean machines and don’t have the luxury of staff padding to get them through whilst they find that ‘ideal’ candidate. Too often they recruit based on need instead of focussing on quality. This short term fix can lead to many future headaches dealing with poor performance, major skill gaps or even lack of culture fit.
Managers would do well to remember that no employee likes to go to work and do a bad job. Poor performance is most often due to skill/knowledge gaps or bad organisational fit. The organisation has a responsibility to the future employee to make sure they select correctly. Not only do they need to ensure they choose the candidate who can do the job well, but they also need to ensure the person clearly understands the role, the expectations and the culture of the organisation, prior to accepting the position.
There sure is a lot to think about when recruiting! If that doesn’t make it difficult enough, we haven’t even mentioned the current skill shortage Australia is experiencing in many industries and the ageing workforce which is already impacting on size of candidate pools.
To increase the chance of getting it right first time organisations should:
Ö Have clear and current position descriptions prior to placing an employment ad
Ö Understand their organisations culture – that is ‘the way we do things around here’
Ö Dedicate time to the employment process and commence it well before the previous employee departs
Ö Establish selection criteria - know what qualities are essential to the role and what are just desirable
Ö Preferably have conducted an exit interview with the departing employee to gain further insight into the role and the perception of the organisation
Ö Follow a set of behavioural interview questions (i.e. questions that ask the candidate to describe a time when…) and conduct other supporting assessments such as role plays, reasoning tests and technical tests at interview
Ö Have a panel of interviewers
Ö Rate candidates on a matrix according to your selection criteria
All these things will greatly increase your chances of employing the right person for the job, first time!