The Perils of Hiring Fast

Nothing like a tight labour market to force employers to make hiring decisions at a breakneck speed! Get the resume, talk to the candidate, ignore the niggling feeling you have that they may not be a fit but at least they have the skills, make the offer, and have them start on Monday. Whew! You have no idea how this is going to work out (fingers crossed!) but at least you grabbed the candidate before someone else did.
Sometimes, the niggling feeling goes away after they settle in and they fit in great and sometimes, quick hiring decisions result in a slow and painful ending filled with regret. So how do you avoid those regret-filled moments when you can tell that your new hire just isn’t fitting in? It all comes down to your recruitment process.
Hiring quickly can be effective when it is supported by pre-planning, systems and supports that give you what you need to make good decisions. Here are the top 6 things to do to make it easy to confidently make great hiring decisions.
1. Be clear on your corporate culture
The best time to articulate your corporate culture is when you want to add someone new to the organization. Before you even begin the hiring process, talk with others on the team about how they would describe your corporate culture. This will give you some great insight into what you need to look for when interviewing.
2. Know what you want
Sit back and write down the names of 2 or 3 of your rock star people. You know the ones – they are your go-to people, the ones that you feel are the best representation of what you are looking for in an employee. Now write down what it is about each of those specific people that makes it work. Use specific words to describe them – their personality, their values, their attitudes. These words are very useful to help you identify what fit looks like on the team.
3. Stretch Yourself
One of the risks of hiring quickly is that we hire people who are just like us and before you know it, the entire organization has one way of looking at things. After you create your favourite qualities list, go back and look for gaps. What are you missing? What new personality type, communication style, or attitude needs to be added to the team? Keep these in mind as you assess your next candidate and go for that stretch. Maybe they bring something that you are missing.
4. Interview for Fit
One of the most effective ways to hire confidently is to have a great interview. What makes a great interview you ask? Interviews are about finding out as much as you can about the candidate. So, you should be doing less talking than them and questions designed to get them to talk about their personality, their beliefs and their values will give you the information you need to assess if they are a fit.
Feel like you could use some help here? Register for Successful Interviewing Strategies!
5. Watch for bias
Biases. We all have them. The trick is to know when you are blinded by them and to make a conscious effort to look beyond them. This alone will open up a world of candidates to you that you might not have considered in the past.
6. Don’t skips steps
One of the biggest challenges associated with hiring quickly is that you skip a step. Phone screen? Why bother! Just bring them in and let’s talk to them, only to find out within the first 5 minutes that they aren’t a fit, wasting everyone’s time. Skipping steps in order to hire fast only ends up costing you more time, and potentially a lot more money, in the long run.
Your Engaged Assignment: When you look at your recruitment process, consider where you can improve the process without cutting the quality and make a few tweaks. It will give you a far better result that rushing through and making a bad decision. Don’t have time to recruit? Give us a call – we would be happy to do the work for you!