Hiring the right talent is among the essential tasks you have as a leader. Get ready–you'll be doing a lot more of it!
Re-Recruiting?
The generation of Baby Boomers (the largest segment in the workforce) are leaving in droves, and the search for their replacements will not be easy-going. Hiring is a critical professional proficiency, and it doesn’t stop with the job offer.
Re-recruiting your best people is as crucial as hiring them in the first place. Research shows that you need to re-recruit your latest hires for at least the first year of employment as they are easily lured away through the first year of service.
How do you recognize if a candidate is a right fit? How do you measure the right fit, manage culture, manage your biases, and make objective hiring evaluations? By “right fit,” I mean a person whose skills and interests match your job requirements and whose values are consistent with the organization’s values.
It starts with preparation. Leaders must be organized and prepared, as well as clear about their wants and needs. As a leader, you have the richest sense of the “right fit.” Yet many see hiring selection as a less significant part of their positions. They devote little time isolating the critical achievement factors for a position, conducting thorough interviews based on those factors, and evaluating and comparing the candidates before crafting a hiring decision.
Real-World Pointers:
Assess the position: Get involvement from others to illuminate the tasks, attributes, and temperament required. Construct interview questions that will help you decide if the person has these skills and traits.
Construct an interview road map with carefully created behavioral questions: Behavioral questions allow the candidates to demonstrate how they have handled certain situations in the past. Their responses and actions will assist you in predicting their ability to handle similar situations in the future. It is best to use the same questions for all candidates so that you can make fair-minded and nondiscriminatory comparisons and assessments.
Include others: Have probable team associates, direct reports, and peers of these prospective employees interview the candidates (ideally asking different questions from yours) and provide their feedback. Note: (Make sure interview questions by associates and direct reports are approved beforehand by an HR Professional. Many questions should never be asked in an interview).
When candidates are in short supply, and your needs are urgent, you can fall victim to the dangerous pattern of hiring out of desperation.
If you’re tempted to resort to desperation hiring, remember that today’s hiring misstep is tomorrow’s trouble. You know how tough it is to rid your team of the wrong hire. Be ready to show off your business and team to candidates by addressing the key issues they raise. Treat candidates more like customers than subordinates.
Consider carefully what you and your team can offer and be ready to give specific examples. If you provide a great team environment, show that by having all team members meet and briefly interview your top candidates. Contemplate your organization’s “wow factors”: those things that distinguish you. Whatever your distinctive value proposition, distinguish it and leverage it throughout the interview.
Support Please!
All too often, we choose the right people but bomb when it comes to supporting them as they assume their new roles. Maybe that’s why so many people leave within the first year on the job. A positive onboarding, orientation, and ongoing support are critical pieces of the process and will ensure that you increase the odds of their success and positive contribution to the team.
Many organizations are demanding their managers have a series of conversations with their new hires over, at minimum, the first year. It’s best to schedule the date and time in the calendar during the onboarding process for these future discussions. The purpose is to continually address the employees’ needs and those of the organization and reinforce the employee’s choice to join. Additionally, the meetings are intended to build the connection between the manager and the new hire.
The initial stages of service are uncertain for the new hire as well as your organization. It’s best to define your expectations as well as listening to theirs. It’s also a good idea to assign a mentor to help navigate their new work environment and culture. The fact is mentors are invaluable to the successful integration of new members into your organizations and can by themselves determine the success or failure of a new hire. Think of all the times in your life a mentor stepped in and pointed you in the right direction or introduced you to the right person. Never underestimate the value of a good mentor.
And finally, you have done a great job of hiring. You have a whole new team of enthusiastic new stars in your organization. Your long-term team members may feel less noticed and even taken for granted. Avoid this by re-recruiting your long-standing talent. Demonstrate to your current employees that they are essential to you and your organization’s success.
By Bill Raney, Eureka Recruiting braney@eurekarecruiting.com