How to Make Hiring Decisions You Won’t Later Regret

If you’ve recently made a bad hiring decision, you’re not alone. Hiring managers regret hiring at least one in every five employees. Follow these tips to help you make future hiring decisions you won’t regret.

Sometimes a candidate’s performance just doesn’t turn out the way you thought it would. In theory, he looked great — he had all the right experience on his resume, knew all the right things to say during the interview, but then failed to meet your expectations during his first few weeks on the job.

If you’ve recently made a hiring decision you regret, you’re not alone. Hiring managers regret hiring at least one in every five employees on their team, according to insights from CEB’s recruiting research published in 2013.

Obviously, the solution is to make more informed hiring decisions. Here are a few tips to help you streamline the hiring process, so you can make hiring decisions you won’t regret:

To find a candidate with the specific skills and qualifications you require, it’s best to narrow your search pool and cut out all the extra noise right from the beginning. Choose a specialized staffing firm.

Usually, candidates who work with specialized firms have a more clear idea of what kind of job they are looking for, and previous experience in that specific industry. Also, staffing agencies take some of the preliminary work of prescreening off of you, and help guide you to candidates who are more likely to fit the position you seek to fill.

Even while working with a staffing agency, it’s best to do some screening of your own to ensure employees are a good culture fit.

Whenever possible, consider screening candidates through the internet — checking out their social media pages, profiles on job sites, or searching for them on YouTube or Vine. Social channels, especially those that allow you to see others through video, can help you quickly determine what someone might be like in person. If you’d still like to get to know a candidate more, ask them to record a short video introduction, or conduct a one-way video interview.

By now, many candidates have caught on. They know what you’re going to ask during the interview and have prepared cookie-cutter answers accordingly. If you want to see your candidate’s true colors, ask unexpected but revealing questions.

Fabricate a complicated workplace problem, and have them explain how they would solve it. Ask them who they would bring with them if stranded on a desert island. Ask what makes them want to burst into laughter or sing out loud. Ask what makes them rage with anger.

These types of questions, while unconventional, will reveal key personality traits which may raise red flags — or give a green light.

For more analysis on your candidate’s inner psyche and what drives them, solicit the help of a few tried-and-true personality assessment tests, such as DiSC or Myers-Briggs. Tests like these are still widely used among many companies today, in fact, 2,000,000 people take the Myers-Briggs test each year, according to the Center for Applications of Psychological Type.

Another great way to “try out” candidates is to provide them with a skills-based test, to show what kind of work they are capable of producing for your organization. For example, give an architect candidate a small design project, or a sales associate a product to pitch. See what they come up with, and ask them to explain their processes to gain an understanding of how they’ll work with the team.

Formal interviews aren’t always the best environment to get to know someone. Candidates are over prepared, nervous, or both — and you might not see the most accurate picture of what they can bring to the table.

After you’ve narrowed down your top candidates, meet them for coffee, lunch, or a walk around the park. Meeting in an informal setting will allow you to chat about your industry-related interests, personal interests, and share your thoughts in a low-pressure environment.

With the internet offering endless resources for instant connection, at a distance, some traditional recruiting processes are no longer the best route to take. To ensure your candidates don’t disappoint, use competitive resources to help narrow your search, screen more quickly and connect in ways that allow you to truly get to know your candidates.

Post by:   Josh Tolan

Josh Tolan is the CEO of Spark Hire , a video interview solution used by more than 2,000 companies across the globe. Learn how video has changed hiring by connecting with Spark Hire on Facebook and Twitter.

Company: Spark Hire
Website: www.sparkhire.com
Connect with me on Facebook  and Twitter.

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