Last week, we took a look at developing a hiring scorecard, a way to analyze your different staffing positions so you can develop the right criteria for filling them. Because a strong team will differentiate your business from the rest of your competitors, let’s continue taking a look at Zach Cutler’s article, To Recruit ‘A’ Players, Try This 5-Step Method, focusing today on how to seek out the right candidates, conduct interviews, and ultimately recruit them.
Sourcing
As Cutler explains, “Don’t expect the right candidate for the job to apply—actively search for candidates.” Sometimes the right candidate will in fact fall in your lap, but more often than not, you’re going to have to seek the right one. This means doing more legwork than posting a help-wanted ad. While this is a good first step, don’t hesitate to leverage your business connections to see “if they know talented individuals that may fit the bill.” Furthermore, you can always ask your current employees for referrals—but make sure you’re cautious when they recommend family or friends, as personal relationships can make for a complex work environment.
Sorting
Cutler then moves on to lay out five different types of interviews you should conduct when vetting your candidates. He mentions using phone screening first, and this is a great idea. However, before you take that step, you’ll want to make some preliminary decisions based on resumes for relevant education and job experience first. After that, phone calls allow you to quickly winnow your candidate list further to the most interesting people without having to go to the effort of arranging face-to-face meetings. Cutler says, “Use four key questions to set up each one in a what, how, tell me more framework.”
Next, Cutler suggests that you move to conducting “long, in person interviews discussing the last 10 years of job experience,” going on to say, “These interviews should last anywhere from one and a half to three hours”. Depending on the nature of your business and the kind of position you’re hiring for, this may or may not seem appropriate. You’ll need to custom fit this process to the appropriate scope of your company. But his advice that you “use the same five questions for each candidate” is important so that you can easily compare and contrast your potentials.
Whether you want to interview your potential new-hires one-on-one or with members of your team present is up to you. If the position requires close teamwork, a new member needs to be a good personality fit for the sake of the overall harmony. In that situation, you should absolutely involve your existing staff. Otherwise, one-on-one makes sense.
Lastly (and perhaps obviously), you’ll want to reach out to the candidate’s references. Don’t bother with this step unless you’re leaning towards hiring someone so as not to waste your time. Focus on specifics when talking with these references. Ask them for examples of how the candidate handled challenges he or she faced so you can uncover more about his or her general attitude to adversity.
Deciding
Once you’ve completed all the necessary sourcing and sorting, the time will come for you to decide. Don’t fret if that decision is to keep looking for someone. You shouldn’t settle if you can avoid it, as a bad fit for your company can be a long-term thorn in your side.
Next week, we’ll touch on making the final decision and how to sell your business culture to your potential new-hire. After all, just because a candidate agreed to be interviewed by you doesn’t mean he or she is truly ready to make the career move.
Either way, before you throw a new person into the mix, don’t forget to make sure your existing staff is running at peak efficiency. There’s no sense in teaching a new person bad habits, so take the time audit your staff to uncover their strengths and weaknesses. Doing so will help guide your when you’re seeking a candidate, after all: your research will reveal which gaps you need to fill. To get started, reach out to us at The Brandt Group so we can aid you with our world-class tools, including mystery shopping and employee feedback surveys. You need as much data as possible to successfully compete in the marketplace, and self-scouting is where it all begins.
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