Almost every exec and manager hires people – even in the flat organizations common today. Yet few do it well, and many put it down low on their list of favorite things to do.
It doesn’t have to be that way, and there are four simple steps you can take to make the hiring process easier, go smoother, and make better hires. This post is the second of the four steps to take. It’s no accident, by the way, that a good process usually brings good results. This series is about getting a process that produces great hires. Some of the technical stuff of how to interview a candidate is covered in greater depth here and here and there’s also tons of material – some of it quite good – on the internet about the ins and out of questions and legal issues associated with interviewing.
Step 1 here covered a basic prep step – Be Clear About What You’re Seeking – that’s often bungled, and is critical to ensuring that the your hiring goes well. Step 2 here – Everyone on the Same Bus – covered the importance of making sure all interviewers were using the same common criteria to assess candidates. This post – Step 3 – Run Hiring Like a Business – covers logistic basics for talent acquisition.
After 30 years of business experience – both running large staffing operations as well as being a candidate myself – my conclusion is that if most people ran their regular business like they do their recruiting operations they’d be out of business. Unless they were a monopoly like an electricity or water company they’d go bankrupt. Be shut down. Go kaput.
Why? Because people wouldn’t tolerate it. The bumps and bruises that are told about recruiting – as well as the sins and plain dumb behaviors that employers sometimes make – are legendary. And for every foul-up there are simple proactive steps you can take to avoid those pitfalls. Mostly it just takes discipline.
Here in no particular order are some of them:
- Do What You Say You’re Going to Do. As the saying goes, the road to hell is paved with good intentions. Avoid having your business reputation tarnished and stand out positively from your talent competitors by simply doing what you say you’re going to do. If you say you’re going to get back to a candidate by Friday noon, get back to them by Friday noon or earlier. If you don’t have a decision yet, call them to let them know you don’t have a decision and give them a new follow-up time. Just doing this one thing well sets you apart from most companies and other hiring managers.
- Be Prepared. From interviewers not knowing what job they’re interviewing for or how the candidate’s job fits in the scheme of the company, to being unable to crank out an offer letter because someone is on vacation, employers do damage to the talent they’ve tried hard to recruit even before someone starts their new job. And it’s not that hard to do well. Like planning an airplane trip (kind of hard to add things to the suitcase once you’re in the air), have things queued up before the first advertisement runs or candidates interviewer. These things to queue up include what’s the job is (see Step 1 – Be Clear What You’re Seeking here) and the selection criteria involved (see Step 2 – Everyone on the Same Bus here). It found it always helped to meet (or have the recruiter if you’re using one meet) in advance with anyone else interviewing candidates (preferably as a group, if not, then one on one) before candidate interviews and to walk them through those steps as well as how the job fits within the scheme of the company, why it’s important, and any career paths that might come from this job.
- Be Organized. A kissing cousin to Be Prepared, being organized means that you have all the things you need to have for the candidate (and prospective new hire) to get going on the job. For candidates, it means have an e-mail or roster on who they’re going to interview with, and the person(s) job title and e-mail address. For interviewers, being organized it means having position descriptions, candidate resumes, assessment forms and a clear understanding of any assessment process, and current status and steps in the interviewing process for this role. Anything the candidate would routinely see (recruiting brochures, job listings, company branding pieces, etc.) are things that should be part of every interviewers “packet” so interviewers are well prepared.
- Cost is in the Acquisition: Savings are in the Retention. Just like a customer, your cost is upfront to acquire the customer, and you make money in the retention. Some sources indicate that it hiring a new employee costs 30-50% of the annual salary of entry-level employees, 150% of middle level employees, and up to 400% for specialized, high level employees. Having things set up (phones, e-mail accounts, desks, integration and orientation programs so people get traction on the new job) are all important if you’re interested getting the candidate off to a faster start, and making some money on the talent you’ve just acquired.
- Be Factual. Candidates can take whatever employers say as gospel. So whatever you – or your interviewers say – should be accurate. Salaries that are quoted should be clear (and not overstated), and the advantages and benefits of working with your firm should be correct. It’s OK to delight someone by having things better than expected. It’s a quick path to discontent to have things worse than anticipated.
- Make the Candidate Business a Priority. Life is busy. Business life may be even busier. But you may have no business unless you have customers and employees. Avoid bumping candidate schedules around as if they had low or no value: it suggests relative unimportance in that’s discretionary – that it can always be rescheduled. If a key client was scheduled to meet you to give you some business most people would do just about anything they could to make that meeting. Schedules with would-be employees – e.g.g candidates – should be just as important.
I’ve been in the people (and teams) coaching business for over 25 years , both as a coach to managers and teams and also as someone directly responsible for hiring thousands of people through roles running large staffing / recruiting operations. From that experience I have a pretty good sense of how and why people get hired. Life Back West is an occasional set of writings focused on ways people, teams and organizations can be both more effective (doing the right thing) and more efficient (doing the right thing well). More about executive and team coaching services can be found at the “About J. Mike Smith and Back West, Inc.” sidebar or the “Hire Me” tab above.