Do You Have Hiring Duties but No Hiring Experience? (Part 2)

In this article, we look at the plight of the office manager, FD, or even IT manager in a small business who, for whatever reason, has taken on the mantle of recruiter without any formal recruiting training or experience. Now, I realize that these people are all competent business professionals, but I still feel they may be able to benefit from some tips and advice on hiring. In the first part of this article, I outlined five pieces of hiring advice; in this second installment, I offer five more tips for recruiters with little or no recruiting experience.

1. Focus on Speed Without Neglecting Quality.

Slow, convoluted hiring processes with multiple hoops to jump through, lots of indecision, u-turns, left turns, rights turns, and delays will aggravate the most patient of candidates. They reflect badly on your company, making you appear a little tardy and disorganized. This will deter candidates — particularly the top candidates, as they will have other options. So, a slow hiring process will lead to you losing talent to the competition.

Try and have a fast hiring process, by eliminating third-round interviews and potentially combining your first and second interviews and assessments into one visit. For typical positions, try to get from advert to offer within six weeks at most (ideally, you’ll fill them in four).

2. Give Candidates a “Road Test.” 

Studies tell us that the most reliable forms of assessment  have candidates perform real aspects of the job. The technical term for this kind of assessment is “assessment center,” but for now we can refer to it as a “road test.” It’s the absolute best way to see if a candidate can do the job.

So, have candidates do more than just a theoretical test. Have them actually perform a typical task or set of tasks within the job. Their performance could be a clear indication of how well they can do the job. For example, a sales candidate might do a role play where they need to conduct a sales pitch and attempt to close a deal with your team, who are role playing the clients.

3. Look at Real Work Samples.

Looking at a candidate’s real-life previous work samples is one of the more reliable forms of assessment. Don’t be afraid to ask candidates to bring in real work samples and evidence of the work they have done. Programmers can bring in code or working applications they have written, designers can bring in their portfolios, etc. It doesn’t work in all areas, but put the challenge to the candidates and ask them.

4. Ask Everyone the Same Questions so You Can Make Effective Comparisons.

One of the biggest mistakes that untrained interviewers make is treating the interview as an informal chat and failing to ask all the candidates the same assessment questions. This is the second most unreliable form of interviewing, yet over 90 percent of employers use this approach at some point. This is why you should dispense with this more random approach and ask candidates a standardized set of questions, in a structured interview, which is the second most reliable form of assessment.

5. Don’t Look for Perfection.

There is a shortage of qualified talent out there, and many employers currently find it hard to locate qualified talent in specified shortage areas. You may struggle to find talent to meet your exacting standards, so don’t look for perfection; you may not find it.

Focus on candidates with good attitudes who can learn fast. Build learning objectives and incentives into their packages to encourage learning.

Good luck with your next hire!