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Do’s and Don’ts of Hiring

By on

September 1, 2020

- Blog

Everyone makes mistakes from time to time, and these errors can have a large effect on a company’s procedures, revenue and goals. When these errors impact the staffing process, the repercussions can be much more dire. Hiring the wrong individual can adversely affect the organization’s work environment by sabotaging project deadlines, customer satisfaction and overall profits. To avoid encountering these problems, below are some of the do’s and don’ts of hiring.


Don’t be too specific
It’s good to create clear requirements and qualifications for the position, but don’t limit your options by being too selective. Great candidates may avoid applying because they don’t meet all of the requirements or they will be overlooked by the HR manager for the same reason. It’s important that it’s clear what the company is looking for from the beginning and that the requirements reflect what is needed rather than the absolute ideal. Keep an open mind to candidates that may not be a perfect fit but still looks able to perform the job to or above expectations.


Create a plan
Design a recruitment strategy, and set up dates for each part of the process, while ensuring that you meet deadlines. It’s imperative to set a realistic time-line because finding the right individual can take at least a month. Make sure all assessments or technical evaluations are appropriate for the particular job. If you are unsure, involve knowledgeable people in the process and ask them to attend interviews or set up processes with you.


Don’t hire just to fill the position
Sometimes managers don’t realize the amount of work and time it takes to hire a new employee and end up rushing the staffing department. Due to this pressure, hiring managers are often forced to hire the first person they think is qualified for the job. This leads to HR overlooking faults and inexperience that might otherwise have disqualified a candidate. If the hire turns out poorly, valuable time and money will have been wasted on training and important work will be delayed. Staffing managers need to be clear with their superiors regarding the time they need it to fill the position properly.


Prepare thoroughly for interviews
First, limit interviews to only the people you feel are completely qualified for the position. Research and plan your questions ahead of time, and only ask questions that are relevant with the position or the company. Try to avoid subjective questions outside of personality testing. If it’s clear that the person has the ability to do the job, it’s important to get to know the person’s attitude, work ethic and interpersonal skills. After all, this is someone everyone has to work with henceforth.


Don’t hire anyone by recommendation
There will always be someone who asks for this type of favour or will recommend someone they know for the company. Never hire people solely based on someone’s recommendation, every individual should meet all the qualifications and go through the hiring process.


Do reference checks
Always ask for two or more professional references, even if they seem perfect after meeting with them. Some people excel on interviews, they know how to showcase their skills and experience and will leave an excellent impression by selling themselves well. References will let the hiring manager know and confirm whether the candidates experience matches their sales pitch.


Hiring the right individual from the beginning, will save any company money and time. Follow these tips and you can not only make hiring more effective but less stressful as well.


Viviana | Contributing Writer

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Blog

Employee Selection Strategies

By on

June 23, 2020

- Blog

Employee selection is one of HR’s strategic roles and key performance indicators. It involves manpower forecasting, staffing and retention activities. By planning, recruiters collaborate with hiring managers in predicting and anticipating the demand for personnel. This is a pro-active approach to ensure there is adequate supply of highly qualified candidates suited to fill in current and future vacancies. Human resources and requisitioning department heads identify and justify the need for new hires. Consequently they define job specifics, set parameters and allocate budget. As an executory body, HR is well-trained in this field. To achieve their goals they employ appropriate selection systems as well as standardized policies and procedures that are necessary for delivering the best prospects.


Below are some employee selection strategies, most admired firms adapt to ensure success in hiring the best candidates.

  • By putting in place effective recruitment initiatives, organizations will be able to serve job openings at any given time. Sources and availabilities of talents possessing the knowledge, skills, and abilities (KSA) necessary to perform the most critical and technical tasks, will vary depending on Top Management’s support and how a particular company adjusts to changing technological trends. Great hiring entails significant operating expenses and for some, sizable investments in infrastructure.

  • Create an employment brand. Do you provide competitive compensation and benefits package? Is your company in the top echelon of corporations? Have you been operating for over a decade or more? Do you take care of your employees? These are just some of the many questions applicants consider before joining any organization. If your answer is yes to all questions then there’s a big probability that you will be able to find the perfect match. Make your company the employer of choice. This way, you will be able to attract topnotch individuals to come and join your firm. As a result, you will have a pool of well-qualified candidates to select from as well as more negotiating power to ensure that you’ll take in the cream of the crop that best suits your budget.

  • In Canada, the job market is very competitive as it has a huge blend of talents, coming from a variety of cultural backgrounds, and skills sets. Therefore, HR must have more options expanding and improving its selection schemes, so that it can provide better impact to the organization. Efforts must be made to exhaust and optimize all recruitment channels and sources by deploying computerized screening and electronic database management systems like Taleo.

  • A candidate may have all the skills and experience required to be successful on the job, but a recruiter must confirm that they have the proper references. Conducting a comprehensive background investigation validates the credibility of a recruit. Through this process, a company can certify their credentials. Resumes are unfortunately often manipulated. As a consequence, feedback from employers matters more and more. Be vigilant in doing reference checks, it should be a direct supervisor of the candidate that you are speaking to since colleagues can be friends with an overly emotional attachment to the prospect.

  • In some countries, checking the candidate’s background is not limited to just authenticating work performance, attitude or contributions with past employers. It extends to knowing how the person relates to the community. This may require them to undergo drug testing, or other tests to comprehensively assess their character before placement.

  • Do not limit yourself to interviewing candidates using only the “generic” interview questions. Take time to develop a unique and well-structured one to assess competencies to a greater extent. Most applicants, because they’ve been applying to so many jobs, are used to answering the standard questions, and many simply say the answers hiring managers want to hear. To really target the person that’s right for the job, perform an extensive screening. For example, if you are looking for a sales personnel, give him actual sales simulation exercises, and see how he’ll be able to use his expertise in actual scenarios.


The list could go on and on, but one thing is for sure, there is always risk attached to hiring. Even if you have selected “the best of the best”, organizational fitness still matters. Install an on-the-job trial to be sure that you’ll only choose the right fit before fully offering the job. If your first choice fails, try the second one. That’s why it’s always necessary to have a backup. Try to have at least three shortlisted candidates on your list for any position.

Adapting best practices in your process will surely influence the company’s bottom line in a meaningful way. Remember, through effective selection, organizations will have repeat customers, increased revenue, a more engaged workforce, sustained job performance, lower turnover, and much more.


M G Beltran | Contributing Writer

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Blog

How To Hire Right

By on

June 16, 2020

- Blog

Beyond having the right product and service, another vital aspect every organization should look into is “Finding the Right Fit”. Hiring someone whose character the business must have in order to succeed. Failure to do so will cost your company time, dollars, and effort. However, given proper tools, training and direction your new recruit will  become your premium capital investment. So, don’t take recruitment for granted, remember, your employees are your most valuable asset. Now, the challenge is how to hire right, the first time. Although the world has become extremely technologically-driven, it still needs Human Resources to be successful.


Let me share a three-part checklist that will surely yield better results in getting the perfect match…


Establish the need to hire.
A proactive and strategic human resources always refer to the plantilla to ensure that the company has the right quantity and quality of people  able  to keep the business running. In cases of manpower requisition, HR in collaboration with the Hiring Manager must be able to answer the two (2) key questions before initiating  recruitment:

  1. Is the vacancy created due to internal movement such as resignation,  maternity/paternity leave, demotion or de-hiring?
  2. If none of the foregoing was the reason, is it an additional headcount due to business expansion?


Remember, hiring is an overhead expense. Thus, ROI shall always be taken into consideration. Also, it is a must to review your existing workforce, you might have a potentially qualified internal candidate who has the eligibility or whose promotion is long overdue. Review employee profile/records or announce/advertise vacancies via intranet or bulletin boards. You can also check if there is an underutilized personnel that can occupy/fill up open position.  If and only if you have fully exhausted your internal resources that you should proceed on searching for external candidate.


The bottom line here is this: Hiring Manager with the assistance of HR may opt promote or distribute duties within the department/organization. It saves the company time and money at the same time increase motivation of employees.


Conduct Job Analysis.
Envisioning what you want or defining labour needs in clearer  terms. This tool is not only used in recruitment, it could also be a realistic basis for   training, wage and salary administration, job re-engineering, health and safety.


The output of job analysis is job description (JD). A well-crafted JD shall be the foundation in designing a competency-based recruitment strategy. It clearly defines major scope and responsibilities of the job as well as relationship with other jobs/departments. It also emphasizes working conditions and hazards, most especially for high-risk profession. A ideal JD is always up to date, with specific title and detailed duties. It has the reporting structure, challenges and opportunities, qualification, knowledge, education and personal characteristics.


From JD, HR can develop job specifications, this is statement of minimum acceptable qualities of a position. The success measure is always the value of the person hired to execute the tasks.


Map out your Recruitment Platform.
The goal is to have a systematic hiring process that will aid HR and Hiring Managers in attracting the best candidates for the job. The bottom line is: the more qualified candidates you have, the more likely you are to locate the most suitable person to fill the job. Utilizing the details in the JD, HR together with Hiring Manager and approval of top management,  create job specifications, salary range and timeline. To increase employee morale, it is necessary to advertise the position internally prior to exploring other sources.  Internal placement is a great way of motivating employees to perform at their fullest potential. If no one will be selected from within the organization, reasons must be clearly explained and communicated or it might lead to grievance. If lack of skills is the cause, HR may recommend training so that person will be prepared should the same position arise again. One of the advantages of internal placement is culture fit, which is the number one consideration in hiring. A candidate can be fully qualified based on KSA but the risk is how the person can mesh well with the culture. When an internal candidate is offered the new position, transition timeline with the current supervisor should be planned.


HR can now proceed to external sourcing when no one qualifies. The commonly employed sources are social media (LinkedIn, Twitter or Facebook), on-line job sites, newspaper ads, job fairs, and campus recruitment (colleges/universities). Conducting career talks to top graduating students is another strategy to invite top graduates to join the company. For high-profile positions, HR are trained on how to court passive candidates or they can use manpower agencies or head hunters who are likewise equipped with tools and expertise in recruiting.


Effective and Efficient Screening and Selection.

Due to scarcity of jobs, there is an influx of active candidates. To simplify HR’s job, setting of criteria/parameters and preparing structured interview questions, will help in separating the desirable to average. It is like designing a Hiring Scorecard.  In constructing interview questions, equal employment opportunity and conformance with legal and labour standards should be taken into consideration.


HR performs the following in screening and selecting candidates:

  1. Resume paper screening enables HR to easily identify which one to process by matching information to the job checklist.
  2. Phone interviews will be conducted for candidates who meets at least 3 out of the 5 items. Only those whose rating is 8 and above in the phone screening will be invited for face-to-face in-depth interview. Again, based on point system, HR should present the short-listed candidates to Hiring Manager who will make an initial impression.
  3. Don’t forget to verify sterling credentials of at least top 3 candidates through professional reference checking. Some industries even require credit history such as banks, insurance companies and the like. When the report is ready together with all the other documents used in screening, HR will present again to Hiring Manager for the final decision. The closing will happen at job offer. For some companies, a non-compete and confidentiality of information agreements are presented during the job offer. These documents are needed to protect the company’s products, clients and trade secrets.


On Boarding is Important.
Make sure candidates are well inducted about the company’s mission, vision and core values before endorsing him/her to his/her assigned department. Be sure to provide the initial tools he/she needs to become successful on the job. It is ideal if a company can invest in a “First 100 Days Development Plan”. Keeping in mind that workforce must embrace the company’s philosophy and business principles, because this is when employee engagement begins.


In conclusion, there is no one-size-fits-all approach to recruitment, it should always be tailored and catered to the type of business. As a tip, don’t embark on a search without answering 5W’s and 1 H. Why/Who/When/Where to get the best talents and what recruitment techniques are helpful and how effective is the hiring process. Stop hiring the wrong people, it is possible!


DBPC | Staff Writer

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