Blog » Avoid Making the Wrong Hires with These Tips

Avoid Making the Wrong Hires with These Tips

Making a bad hire can be pretty costly. The process of hiring someone costs money on its own, and you could spend even more money trying to replace someone who turned out not to be a good fit. Not only is it expensive, but it affects productivity and disrupts your business when you hire someone who shouldn’t have been hired. Clearly, the best thing to do is try not to make bad hiring choices in the first place. This can be easier said than done, as you can’t know everything about someone before you hire them. However, you can do your best to avoid making mistakes.

 

Clearly Define Roles

Before you start asking people to interviews or even list your open position, you need to make sure you have a good job description ready to go. One of the most important things to do is to clearly define any roles that you’re advertising. Let candidates know who you are looking for and what skills and experience they should have. Outline what their responsibilities will be, who they will report to, and what you expect from them. All of these things will help to encourage applications from the right people and ensure their applications are detailed.

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Offer Attractive Remuneration

As well as letting people know what to expect in terms of their responsibilities, you also need to let them know about what they’re going to get in return. If you make the mistake of offering too low a salary or a poor benefits package, you could find that the talent that you’re really hoping for doesn’t end up in your applications pile. Do your research to find out what’s being offered for similar positions, not just by your direct competition but by companies in other industries that are hiring for similar roles.

 

Choose the Right Recruitment Partner

Most businesses need a little help with their recruitment, especially when hiring for a number of roles. It’s time-consuming to find the right hires, but working with a recruitment company or labour hire agency makes it easier. When you’re looking for an agency to work with, you might want to find a company that has experience in your industry or niche. They will have a better knowledge of what they should be looking for, industry-standard qualifications, any essential jargon, and more. They will help you to find the right people as quickly as possible but they will also avoid rushing through the process.

 

Have More Than One Interviewer

When it’s time to interview people, it can be useful to have more than one person in the interview room. You don’t have to have more than one person asking the questions, but it can be useful to have multiple people there to assess the candidate. You might invite some of the people who will be working directly with your new hire, whether it’s their manager or even someone who will be on the same team as them. This can give you different perspectives to help you make a decision.

 

Run Background Checks

Many employers and recruitment companies will carry out background checks as standard. Of course, you want to check their references to ask about their previous work experience, but you might also want to check criminal records and other background details too. This is essential for some roles, such as jobs working with children or vulnerable people or roles in finance. Background checks allow you to avoid hiring someone who could become a liability later. But they also offer an opportunity to talk about someone’s past, allow them to be honest with you, and consider hiring them if you still feel they could be a good fit.

 

Take Your Time

Rushing through the recruitment process can prove to be a disaster. If you hire someone too quickly, you can soon find out that they’re not the right fit for your company. You might think that you’re saving time and money but if you hire the wrong person, you can spend even more time and money trying to replace them. If you’re unsure about who to hire, spend time thinking about it and weighing the pros and cons of each candidate. If you’re still not sure about any of them, you might need to conduct another round of interviews to avoid hiring the wrong person.

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Take Steps to Avoid Bias

Bias is a big problem in recruitment and hiring, and it can be a difficult one to deal with. Even using algorithms and technology to help doesn’t always work because these things are made by people with certain biases. But if bias creeps into your hiring process, you could end up hiring the wrong person. It can be difficult to remove certain types of bias and discrimination from your recruitment process, but you might try doing things such as removing names from applications. Simply being aware of and trying to address internal biases is a good start.

 

Review Technical and Soft Skills

Even when the role is highly technical, it’s often important to make sure you consider soft skills too. This can include things like communication and time management, which are vital to most roles. You could end up hiring someone who has all of the necessary technical skills but isn’t capable of working in a team or communicating with customers. Be sure to put emphasis on soft skills instead of only focusing on technical skills.

 

Test Essential Skills

When someone says that they can do something, you can take their word for it. But what if you hire them and they’re not as good as they say? Sometimes it makes sense to test someone’s skills, either with a short test or assignment or perhaps with a trial shift or probationary period. This allows you to check that they have the necessary skills and that they can do things to your satisfaction. A trial period can also allow you to see if they fit into the workplace.

You can avoid hiring the wrong people if you take your time with the hiring process and make sure you know what you’re looking for.

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