Monday, 14 August 2017

A Must-Have Checklist for Successful Hiring

To be a recruiter, you have to wear many hats. You need the savviness of a marketer for getting that job post out there, the patience and sharp judgment of a psychologist for conducting interviews, and the persuasion skills of a negotiator for sealing the deal.

With so many variables to take care of, it’s helpful to be systematic. Here’s a basic checklist that you can go through for each candidate when hiring:

Do they have the skills necessary for the job?

This is pretty much the most obvious criteria and the bare minimum that should be fulfilled. While you can gather information right away from the candidate’s track record, it’s more thorough to give a test during the application process. The test will most likely come from the department with the open position, but it’s still a must for you to know the position well; you can also use the job description as a guide during the interview.

What does their past performance show?

Results speak for themselves. There’s a difference between saying someone’s highly motivated and having concrete proof for it–say, a project that increased revenue. Take a big-picture view of the candidate’s background, taking into account her previous roles, what her company was like, the trajectory of her career. If she operated before in a similar position and work environment, then it’s likely that she’ll be able to handle the job well.

Do they fit into the company culture?

Recruitment isn’t just about measuring competency–you’re not evaluating a machine, you’re dealing with a human being. Personality and values come into play because employees who aren’t happy with your company are likely to underperform and quit. Give a clear explanation of your company culture, and clarify the candidate’s expectations, especially if he’s coming from a very different place (e.g. from startup to corporate, or vice-versa).

How passionate are they about the job?

A red flag is when your candidate doesn’t have any questions. An even bigger red flag is being clueless about what exactly your company does–given that most companies have websites now, it’s not that hard to do a bit of research! Look out for other signs of apathy or disinterest. Lack of excitement even before they’ve started the job is very telling. It’s likely that such a candidate isn’t very committed to your company–you might want to look elsewhere.

Do they have emotional intelligence?

You checked for the hard skills first; now it’s time to hone in on the candidate’s soft skills. These are a lot harder to gauge, but they’re nonetheless important–a technically gifted hire wouldn’t accomplish much if he couldn’t work well with other people. A standard tactic is to use behavior-based questions (“Tell me about the last time you had a major conflict at work”) or situation-based questions (“What if…”). Interacting with the candidate face-to-face gives you a chance to assess how he communicates, based on what he says and his body language.

Are they honest and ethical?

Out of everything in this list, integrity is probably the last to be considered, if at all. Consider, though, how an unethical employee can deal a lot of damage to a company, from tarnishing its reputation to costing it millions of pesos. You can do your own background check by following up on your candidate’s references. During the job interview, try to ask open-ended questions and get into the details, looking out for possible inconsistencies. Finally, when you do decide to hire, ask for an NBI clearance, to be safe.

We say that this is a basic checklist because you can still add so much more to this, depending on what you’re hiring for. But it does covers the essentials–ideally, the candidate you choose should be able to tick off all the items.

Pair this with our upcoming product, Sprout Recruit, and you get a much better chance of finding the right person. Sprout Recruit streamlines the hiring process by posting on top job websites for you and then collating all of the results in one place. It’s definitely less effort on your part, plus you get to pick from a wider, qualified pool of candidates. We’re excited to share it with you, so watch out for more updates on our blog!

The post A Must-Have Checklist for Successful Hiring appeared first on Sprout.



source https://sprout.ph/blog/must-have-checklist-for-successful-hiring/

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