Your company needs fresh blood to fill some roles and you’re in charge. As a hiring manager, it’s your responsibility to find the best talent out there and bring it in. Remember, you’ll have to live with your decisions once you’ve hired the person who is going to sit next to you!
No matter how the new employees turn out to be (great hits or misfits), you should take the hiring process seriously. Here are 5 important things you need to know about the hiring process.
Seeking talent in the right places
- Have a clear understanding of the positions you’re filling – The required skills, experience and knowledge in the related field are crucial while searching for the right fit for your organization.
- The most talented of recent graduates are digital natives. They live their lives on smartphones. The Pew Research Center in its 2015 survey found that 28% of all Americans had used their phones to find a job.
- Publish advertisements on appropriate forums – online hiring portals like iimjobs.com, professional social platforms etc. If your budget is limited, publish on the most cost-effective avenues that will yield you the best returns. University-affiliated portals such as iimjobs.com attract the most skilled and driven professionals in the job market
- Tapping into the pool of brilliant minds that graduate from reputed institutes can help you save time. You can tie up with colleges and universities to ensure that you have access to a steady stream of quality candidates.
- You can also save a lot of time and effort that goes into the hiring process by seeking referrals from your alumni network. Recruits hired through alumni networks cost 50% less to hire and are 40% more productive in the first 3 months of work than others.
- Be approachable. Make sure your website, contact details, email ID, twitter handle etc. are working.
- If applications have to be sent by mail, make sure you’ve got the address right. If applications are to be sent through the company website or by email, make sure the process works.
Shortlisting applications
- Set objective guidelines to evaluate applications and stick to them.
- Decide on must-have qualities and also decide “preferred” skills that an ideal candidate must have. There might be some aspects such as a particular technical skill or knowledge of a language that your organization absolutely needs. Make a list of those must-have ingredients.
- At the same time, make a list of all the extra qualities that you would prefer in a hire. This will help you keep a broad mind about hiring different types of personalities while making sure that they meet all your necessary requirements.
- After you’ve gone through the applications and chosen the ones that fit the requirements, select the best, commensurate with the number of positions available. For instance, you might decide to invite four or five candidates to the interview for one position.
- The decision on the number of candidates to be invited is yours. Invite keeping in mind potential turnout, accounting for absentees and also, future hiring needs.
- Intimate those selected for an interview through appropriate channels, depending on your company policy (through email, mail or phone calls). Set an appropriate date and time for the interview and clearly convey the same. Also, don’t forget to intimate those who haven’t been selected with a word of encouragement.
- Send feedback to candidates who request it.
Getting the best out of the interview
- The interview is equally important for both the parties involved. The candidate and you–the hiring manager. Prepare for the interview beforehand – determine what questions you’d ask with the requirements in mind and rehearse for the interview.
- Give the candidate a chance to describe their interests, abilities, and expertise. Their responses will help you gauge their level of confidence, ease of expressing themselves and presence of mind during stressful situations.
- Frame questions in a way that you get a relevant and useful answer. Some negative questions such as , what is the one thing we won’t like in you once you’re hired, might get you a defensive or a fake answer that doesn’t really help you understand the candidate’s potential. Find out how driven and passionate the candidate is about her/his work. Ask about positive experiences in the previous organizations! Remember, do not be judgmental. A diverse workforce is going to end up helping your organization grow.
- While it’s important that the candidate fits in with your company’s values, don’t be too rigid about opinions/perspectives. The diversity in opinion/perspectives is equally important in finding solutions to problems and ensuring your company’s success.
Positive feedback with rejection
- Sometimes, a candidate is not a good fit for the organization for several reasons. Make sure that you are open and honest with those who are rejected.
- Job seekers are hungry for constructive criticism. As a hiring manager, you have expertise that you can share with them. Perhaps, thanks to you, they might even ace the next interview of their lives!
Unscheduled phone calls
- If you’ve decided on your candidates of choice, there’s one final test that you can give them. Just place a casual call about a few questions or details that you had missed out during the interview.
- This will give you a glimpse of how they are over the phone, in their day-to-day busy lives. You may catch them off-guard, which should give you a rare insight into how they are as a person.
Once selected, introduce your picks to support forums at your workplace and make sure they feel accepted. This is essential to reduce attrition rates, preempt internal squabbles, boost performance and make the workplace enjoyable for everyone.
Finally, if you are a hiring manager looking to find talent for your company, try out online job portals like iimjobs.com in addition to print media advertisements to reach a much larger audience of active and qualified job seekers. Besides, online job portals are much more cost efficient than print media ads.
