Have you ever wondered why finding and retaining talented staff for your organization is so difficult? You’re not alone. This problem affects all types and sizes of organizations, no matter the business model, and it can be caused by a number of issues. Some of the challenges organizations face when searching for top talent are beyond their control; however, many other challenges can be controlled by focusing on talent as a strategic initiative rather than an afterthought.
When it comes to setting up your organization’s hiring process, the following best practices can set you up for success:
Need help finding the right talent for your organization?
There are many reasons that organizations turn to a third-party to assist in hiring. Some organizations have no human resources or recruiting department. Others may not have access to hiring resources like salary software, a job description writer, or ad specialist. Oftentimes, even organizations with HR departments choose to use a placement service for their hiring needs because they don’t have the time to devote to the hiring process. Whatever your motivation for seeking a third-party to assist with your hiring process, it’s imperative that you make the best decision for your organization to ensure that you’re getting the best talent.
Although there is a cost associated with third-party assistance, it’s often worth it to save time and ensure an efficient and professional hiring process. There are two types of external assistance: head hunters and placement consultants. Both can help you find qualified candidates and make informed hires. They may sound like the same thing with different titles, but these two professional services are really quite different.
A head hunter actively seeks out, cold calls and recruits candidates on behalf of the business that hired them. Placement consultants, on the other hand, focus on the internal process of hiring. In other words, the head hunter brings in the candidates—who may or may not even be active job seekers—while the placement consultant does the heavy lifting work normally carried out by a full HR team.
What’s the better option? In most cases, a placement consultant will end up saving you more time and more money, while also delivering top-tier candidates for you (the business doing hiring) to choose from in the end.
It’s important to remember that your relationship with a placement consultant should be collaborative. Your placement consultant should understand your organization, your culture and the overall goals of your business. Composing a formal job description, determining an appropriate salary range for your marketplace, and searching and screening candidates are all part of the collaborative process.
Eide Bailly’s placement process has brought success to hundreds of clients. Here’s how we do it:
1. MEETING WITH MANAGEMENT: We’ll review the position with management and determine job duties, skill sets and experience necessary to fulfill the position, as well as discuss salary range and company culture.If you plan to keep your hiring procedures internal, consistency and preparation are key. Hiring is one of the biggest investments an organization can make and approaching that investment inconsistently or unprepared can be costly.
The first step in preparing is determining the actual hiring need. A company can’t find the right person if they don’t know what skills or experience they are looking for in the first place. Strong organizations will look at their current employees to see if there are skills or expertise that can be utilized differently so that true skill or expertise gaps can be identified. Recruitment of staff with those skills and expertise will help to round out the team and make the organization more successful.
When it comes time for interviews, including the right people in the interview process is crucial. Successful recruitment processes allow candidates to interact with company representatives at various levels to ensure different perspectives are shared and important information is gained. At a minimum, an organization should include individuals at the peer level, management level and executive level to allow the potential new hire the opportunity to connect with enough people so they can picture themselves working for the company.
Each person involved in the interview should have standard interview questions to ask and specific information to share so that the candidate leaves the interview with an overall picture of the organization and the interviewers leave the interview with information to determine if the candidate is the right fit for the position and organization.
Preparing individuals to be successful members of the company’s interview team includes providing them with solid training on how to be effective at interviewing. Organizations can participate in pre-recorded interview trainings and webinars or may choose to develop an interview training specific to their company. The goal of the training is for those taking the class to learn best practices for conducting a successful interview.
Interview training should include information regarding key behaviors for interviewing success, a review of interview biases to watch out for, tips for handling difficult interview scenarios and details on the company’s recruitment process so they understand their role as an interviewer.
Key behaviors for successful interviewers include:
Anyone participating in the interview process should be aware of the various biases that exist and focus on not giving in to their own bias(es). Some of the more common biases include:
Having standard interview questions to ask of all candidates helps interviewers avoid biases because even if a halo, horn, just-like-me or casual candidate is being interviewed, they are all being asked the same questions to determine if they have the skills to do the job. Standard questions also allow for the information gathered to be more professional in nature and less personal, which mitigates risk for unlawful employment practices.
Standard interview questions can also help an interviewer if they are put in a difficult scenario listed below:
Having standard interview questions can provide the interviewer with what to say to get the interview back on track.
It is important for anyone involved with interviewing potential new hires to understand the complete recruitment/hiring process and their role in that process. Organizations should provide interviewers with the standard questions to ask and the list of topics they should cover during their segment of the interview to ensure that candidates are able to tell the company all about their skills and experience while receiving a good overview of the company, department, position and benefits.
Whether you choose to seek a third-party consultant or keep your recruitment and hiring practices in-house, it is important to an organization’s success that you strive for a consistent and efficient hiring process. By doing so, you can be sure you are finding the best talent available to fill your positions and can get back to business focused on your long-term goals.
Eide Bailly’s business advisors can assist you in outsourcing your organization’s needs.
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