The Workplace Coach

When was the last time you conducted a recruitment process?  Did you successfully find the person you were looking for?  Did they turn out to be the best hire?   

Here is how many recruitment processes tend to go. 

You become aware that someone is leaving (or getting promoted) and there will be a vacancy that needs filling.  Speed is paramount as you have work to be done, and the rest of the team can’t carry the extra load for too long.  You pull out the paperwork (or ask HR for it) that was used last time the job was advertised and you get it out in the marketplace as soon as possible. 

You collect resumes and cover letters and start browsing through them. You spend approximately 35 seconds on each resume because you are looking for specific qualifications, experience or job titles.  Then from that shortlist you eliminate anyone who looks like they are job hoppers because you don’t want to have to go through this process again in six months. You won’t admit this to anyone else but you might also make some ill-informed value judgements to filter out anyone who looks too old or too young or just wouldn’t fit in with the rest of the team.

Now you look for three to five of the short shortlist who seem to fit the bill and who feel like they might be affordable within the allocated budget for the role.  You invite them to interview, you rope in another senior manager and maybe an HR person and you go through the choreographed charade of an interview. You ask each applicant exactly the same questions and you get slight variations on the theme as responses.

You use the tried and tested selection strategy of gut feel and you pick the one person that you vibed the most with.  You speak to their nominated referees which is pretty much a tick and flick exercise because HR told you that you need to make these calls.  What are this person’s strengths?  Any areas for development? Would you hire them again? And so on…

You make the offer, there’s a bit of back and forth, you offer slightly more than you are comfortable with, they accept and can start in four weeks. Congratulations, you have essentially just hired the same person that you hired last time you filled this role, and who just walked out the door.  Note that if this person is on $120,000 per annum, and they stay for 3 years, then you’ve effectively just made a $360,000 purchase for the company based on the process outlined above.

Now, you hope they work out but if they don’t then you always have the option of turfing them during the probation period. Reflect for a second on the fact that you spent less time selecting this person for an important role in your company than you would spend choosing a new smart tv for your family. There is a fairly high probability that they won’t work out, but if they do happen to have been a good choice then it will be more due to luck than any great selection techniques.   

How can you increase the chances of making a ‘best possible’ recruitment decision?

The first thing is to slow things down.

A vacancy is an opportunity to stop and really assess whether you need another of the same or something different.  Roles will evolve over time and the needs of the business change, take the time to figure out what you need now or are going to need in the future. Once you have a clear picture of what you are looking for, develop a new Information Package for potential applicants, and then think about where you are going to find the person you need. 

Where might they be currently working? Are they here or are they overseas? Do they need to physically be here or can they do the job remotely? Is a SEEK listing going to find them or do you need to target people directly through LinkedIn or maybe industry publications?  

Having thrown the net out and given it a couple of weeks, you now have some applications in hand.  Again, take the time to really look at them all.  People generally won’t apply for a role unless they truly believe they are both capable of doing the job and that they are competitive in the field.  Review your candidates with a view to not just finding the best person for this role but also to identify potential candidates for other roles that might come up in the future. Start building a talent database that you can access again later.

I won’t cover the nuts and bolts of best practice selection processes here but try to think outside the box.  Make the interviews interesting and personal. You want to get a sense of the whole person, whether they can they do the job, will they fit with the team, what are their longer-term aspirations?  If the job is building widgets then have your candidates build a widget. You might also want to bring them in, show them around, get someone on the team to tell them what a ‘day in the life of…’ will look like.

Don’t put too much weight on the referee comments. I have yet to meet any candidate who nominated a referee who wasn’t going to say the sun shone out of their you know what. The call to the referee is really just about verifying bits and pieces of what the candidate told you. 

Two final pieces of advice, invest some money in getting someone who knows what they are doing to help you with the process. If it costs you up to 15% of the total remuneration package to get the ‘best possible’ placement then it’s worth it.  Also, many professional recruiters will give you a 3-month replacement or money back guarantee if things don’t work out.

The last thing is this… your selection process says a lot about you and your company. Your reputation as an employer is something that you want to build and protect. People talk, so have a think about what you want them to say about you and your company.

If you treat your candidates respectfully, if you communicate with them throughout, if you give the unsuccessful candidates some useful and constructive feedback in a timely manner then they are going to say good things about you.  If you don’t do these things, they won’t.