Finding a new team member can be hard. Particularly finding the right one. Hiring someone to work with you in your business can be quite daunting – the pressure of finding the right person can be overwhelming. That combined with figuring out the best way to recruit can cause many business owners to dread the process. In this article we’ll explore the recruitment process and provide you with practical people solutions to make recruitment less stressful and more successful.
When recruiting new staff bias can often creep into the recruitment process and result in the wrong decision being made. The old saying of “trusting your gut” is quite flawed when it comes to recruitment as we all have hidden unconscious biases from our life experiences that influence our decision making. The most common biases include:
1. The Halo effect – focussing on one thing about the candidate (e.g. where they went to school, a previous employer etc) to the point that it outshines every other aspect of their suitability for the role.
2. Hiring someone who is similar to you – you like them personally or have something in common with them, but they might not necessarily be right for the job
3. Judgement bias – making a judgement based decision early on in the process, then shaping the interview to confirm your initial judgement. This could include decisions based upon appearance, gender or even your own past experiences (eg – my last employee worked in that industry and was terrible therefore all people from that industry are terrible).
As well as bias, the other common recruitment mistake is hiring too quickly. When you have a gap to fill in your business it’s easy to panic and rush into appointing someone who “mostly” fits the role. But being too quick to hire can end in disaster.
To ensure success with your hiring it’s important that you have a strategy and structure to the recruitment process. Following these steps will help:
1. Have a clear job description upon which to base your advertising and ensure your ad clearly states the expectations of the position.
2. Advertise in the right place – where are your candidates looking for jobs? Seek, LinkedIn, Facebook, Gumtree or somewhere else?
3. Use a structured recruitment process (including timelines, set interview questions based on the job description and skills required for success and reference checking).
4. Ideally interview with another person (an independent person like a HR Consultant or another team member) to minimise bias and have additional insight.
5. Create behavioural based interview questions where you are asking candidates to provide you with real life examples of what they have done in the workplace.
6. Write down the answers to your interview questions to review later with your fellow interviewer so that you can make an independent and non-emotional decision.
7. Conduct structured reference checks (again linked back to the job description) with former managers or supervisors. Keep in mind that colleagues can’t provide you with all the insight you need to assess suitability.
8. Ideally also use a psychometric assessment tool to add in some extra validity to your decision making process.
9. Don’t take too long to move through the process or make a decision – the best candidates don’t stay available for long, so be efficient and decisive.
10. However, don’t just rush to appoint someone from the first pool of applicants. If you don’t think you have found the right person, don’t be afraid to start the process again or seek external help.
11. Have a formal letter of offer and employment contract ready for your successful applicant so that you can make it official and secure them for your business.
Having the right procedures and documentation in place when you undertake recruitment will make the process not only easier and less stressful for you but also will increase your ability to appoint the right new team member the first time. If you need assistance with Recruitment (from helping you manage the process yourself through to outsourcing the entire process) contact Katrina Haynes on [email protected] for a free chat.
About the author:
Katrina Haynes is the founder and Director of K Haynes HR – HR Matters. Katrina works with SME’s to provide practical people solutions to minimise risk and maximise profit. Providing outsourced HR and workplace improvement services, Katrina specialises in Human Resources strategy, benchmarking, governance & compliance, recognition & reward, recruitment and DiSC personality profiling. Coaching business owners, Managers and HR teams, Katrina tailors solutions to assist individuals and organisations reach their full potential.
