One of the challenges of human resource  management is hiring the right talents; the right employees are what make up successful teams within the company. The hiring process alone makes great use of the company’s resources all the way from job posting to new employee training. Yet the cost does not stop there. If hiring managers make the mistake of hiring the wrong talents the “return on the investment” creates a significant loss. One wrong hire can cost as much as 6 times the salary of 1 employee. This is very much the case when the recruitment process works more like “the usual grind” with no real quality in the process of doing things. Organizations need to invest more in the hiring process.

Think “right”, hire “right”

One fatal mistake always committed by hiring managers is hiring the talent he or she “likes”. This is not surprising as people are drawn to people they like or anyone that reflects their personality. This is quite dangerous when one holds the key position of being the hiring manager as not all likable talents are “the right” talents for the job. Not that a likeable person has no place in an organization but a likeable personality does not truly reflect the ability to do a competitive job – especially if this job requires critical thinking and abrupt but wise decision-making.

But it is not to say that a likable person can’t also possess the competitive abilities of a think tank; such is always possible. Besides what kind of culture would an organization have if it is only composed of hard-hearted employees mindless of true human relationships? The same would not become an ideal working environment as well. Balance is key in employing both the right brainers and left brainers.

Do things right the first time

During an interview there are things an interviewer can and can’t readily assess. While attitude can easily be assessed through positive or negative vibes, the same can’t be said on working behavior. While it can be true that an attitude can be have a direct relationship with work behavior, in which a positive attitude leads to a hardworking, self-reliant behavior at work, it may not always be the case. There are highly productive individuals at work that can’t manage to delegate and would rather micro-manage because of lack of trust to co-workers or are unwilling to share work credits. In the long run, this kind of employee may be well sabotaging the progress of organizational growth than positively contribute to it.

In order to hire the right employee, here are a few tips:

• Design a well-defined hiring process with a clear definition of a “right” employee
• Decide on your basic qualifiers: the right skills, attitude and experience for the job. Device a scoring system.
• Properly select and weed out the resumes that do not reflect your qualifiers. The scoring system will make the weeding out much easier.
• Do a short first level interview through the telephone with brief personality assessment
• Do an in-person interview to validate skills
• Conduct a background check with references that supervised the candidate. Go as far back as 6-10 years.
• Do a 2^nd in-person interview to discuss issues that were brought out during the background check. Investigate further on personality type by asking about junior and senior high school.
• Once finally selected and offered the job, create a “check-back” program to continuously assess the personality and behavior on-the-job. The collective data on employees will also be useful in fine-tuning the hiring process until they become perfect.

Avoid hiring the wrong candidate by learning about the Questions that will Reveal the Candidate’s True Qualities!

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Article Contributed by HR in Asia‘s Team.

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