Tweet

Hire The Right Person, The First TIme

Guest post by: Stephen Blakesley

Article Overview: Competition for talent is already stiffening, driving hiring cost up and making it critically important to hire the right person the first time.

Hire The Right Person, The First TIme

Over the past couple of years, organizations have spent a lot of time becoming more efficient i.e. accomplishing more with fewer resources. Many organizations have done so well with this that profits have accelerated. The downside is that people are often over worked as the work/life balance has shifted to the work side. Many are unhappy and soon, as the economy improves are going to become more mobile and begin investigating other job opportunities.

As competition among companies for top talent “revs up”, acquisition costs of competent people are spiraling higher. What can you do to reduce your cost of hiring?

The answer is a three-pronged strategy that involves managers in a structured hiring practice. Frankly, most managers would rather do anything than interview prospective hires. Why do managers dislike the hiring process? I believe it boils down to just two things: 1) They are sparsely trained in the hiring process, and 2) there is great risk in making a bad hire.

Managers make most of the hiring decisions. They are pressured from the top down to fill vacant positions quickly and from the bottom up to reduce the workload just as quickly. The emphasis is on getting a body in the job so the quarterly productivity numbers can be met. The philosophy is “fill the position fast, and we’ll worry about productivity and retention later.” The result of that mindset is low productivity and high turnover—just the opposite of what is desired.

Three Steps

To improve your success in hiring high-performing people—and improve morale, productivity and retention—take these three actions:

1. Improve morale of hiring managers by helping them become superior interviewers. Hiring managers will then have confidence in their ability to select winners. The morale of middle managers is vital in the hiring success. Morale is low among managers because the overwhelming pressure to advance their skills and get desired results. One of the weakest skill-sets among these managers is their ability to conduct a quality interview. And a poorly conducted job interview provides very low probability in predicting success on the job. Without providing proper training, you should not expect your managers, who are drawn in many different directions, to execute highly effective interviews that pinpoint the right candidates.

We find training managers on a structured interview process to be an effective tool for improving their morale. Most managers are deeply insecure when it comes to interviewing. Introducing structure might mean nothing more than having predetermined questions to ask candidates and scoring the answers, but it adds greatly to the interviewer’s confidence. Or training on how to construct behavioral style questions that evoke answers to which the manager can listen and evaluate rather than focus on what they are going to ask next.



2. Improve productivity by making sure the employee has both the hard and soft skills required by the job. Create a Job Benchmark and provide a better fit between employee and the job. When I ask managers to describe how a person would have to “be” (not do) to be successful in a given job, I get a blank stare. They have no idea. Yet, more people are terminated because of their inability to “be” the kind of person who is considered a high-performer. Creating clarity around the hard and soft skills required by a job and matching candidates to those needs improves both productivity and retention. It improves productivity by placing people with strengths in positions that require those strengths. It improves retention because people are working in jobs that require their strengths and they can use the skills at which they are best.

3. Improve retention by creating a mentoring environment where employees can get constructive feedback on their performance from non-threatening sources. People stay with organizations because their values are being satisfied, because they like their boss, and because they are recognized for their contributions. Some approaches to employee satisfaction are more effective than others. One of the most effective tools is mentoring and the use of external coaching. A major reason why people leave organizations is because they do not have someone who cares about them as a person. Mentoring and coaching mitigate that feeling. A well-organized mentor/coaching program is most effective in developing strengths, creating employee buy-in, and providing a sense that someone really cares about them. Mentoring/coaching is not just about the good things that people deliver—it’s about managing weaknesses, as well. Employees connect with people who communicate a sense of personal caring—and often act on recommendations faster and with more intensity when these come from colleagues. LE

Related Articles
  How to Hire the Right Person During an Economic Downturn
  Is there really a Labour Squeeze in Alberta?
  How Are You Doing with Hiring?
  How to Prevent Discrimination in the Workplace
  Long and Short- Tailed Keywords
  What do you owe the IRS? What to do about it?
  Hire Purchase Financing for Small Business
  Don't Search For A Great Sales Leader - Look For The Right One
  Does Your Recruitment Process Hire The Best Salespeople?
  The Top Ten Hiring Mistakes
  The Bozo Explosion
  Hiring to Sustain Growth in a New Economy - 2 Things You Should Look For When Hiring New Employees
  Why Should You Hire a PHP Developer For Your Website Development?
  Why Should You Hire a PHP Developer For Your Web Development?
  Why Hire a Public Relations Firm
  Avoid the Cookie Cutter Solution
  Money Saving Tips To Rent A Car
  Moving Up In Life
  Dr. Martin Luther King and Apple
  Are You Setting Up Your New Hire Sales People For FAILURE?

Article Tags: competition, hiring, hiring managers, managers, people, rising costs



Related Forum Posts
Re: Moderators on vacation - Well what happens if you own a store or bar/restaurant? You're up at the crack of dawn to do prep work, and the last one there late at night closing... open 7 days a week... what can such an entrepreneur do for time off? Hire a trusted manager?
Respect?!? - Hi there, A successful business depends on ongoing series of transactions. This inlvolves people. To what extend is respect important? When one thinks of himself alone, like me, me and me, how can respect become real? How many types of respect can we come up with? I think of a few: Respect of disagreement can be one. Then there is Respect of the Customer. Respect of position. Respect of 'Older Person'. By the same token, Respect of the 'Younger ones'. etc..... Has anybody got any other ideas on this subject. Kindest Regards Beat "Unlock People's Potentials!"
Hiring good people - Thanks everyone. From the PROFIT companies the success formula seems to be: - Give employees responsibilities that make them stretch themselves - Provide them with a good work environment and happy co-workers - Invest in them by giving them training - Build projects with them to give them some ownership of the idea - Make sure they fit your company culture And almost all of them say: Hire slow, fire fast.
Re: Top Banner Help - [quote:35xjo6uq]Good job on the banners BennyBoy![/quote:35xjo6uq] No probs:) I agree Online Marketing and Publicity Search Engine Optimization - Web Design and Programming Blogging also may be... Web Design Tutorials Looking to Hire - jobs section Interesting Articles / websites
Re: Where is the best place to find a web developer? - [quote="RobBright":1o5m5bcf]You could try the warior forum, full of internet marketers and web guys their[/quote:1o5m5bcf] This is a good idea actually. Warrior Forum is a trusted site with people supporting and helping each other. They also have a section called Warriors for Hire where you can find many web developers there.


Share this article with your friends. Fund someone's dream.

Leave a comment below or share on the left and you'll help support entrepreneurs in Africa through our partnership with Kiva. Over $50,000 raised and counting - Please keep sharing! Learn more.

Newsletter

Get advice & tips from famous business
owners, new articles by entrepreneur
experts, my latest website updates, &
special sneak peaks at what's to come!

Name:
Email:

Popular Articles

Web Design in 30 Minutes - Can this be Right?

How to Set Sales Goals that Work

Leadership-A Daily Gift

Suggestions

Email us your ideas on how to make our
website more valuable! Thank you Sharon
from Toronto Salsa Lessons / Classes for
your suggestions to make the newsletter
look like the website and profile younger
entrepreneurs like Jennifer Lopez.