When we hire a person to work for our business, we may use a lot of time, money, and human resources to get the right person for our business. If this person doesn’t work out, then we will need to go through the process again and spend even more resources to get another person. It is therefore crucial, especially for small businesses, to make sure the hire is a great fit for your business from the start but how do you avoid bad hires? Let’s look at five ways.
1. Write a clear job description
Someone has resigned or left and now you have a space in your business to fill. Do you have a clear understanding of the soft and hard skills you require from your new employee for this position? It is important to consider the attitude you want your new hire to have as well as the basic skills they need to do the job. It is also important to remember that if you have two hires, attitude is harder to adjust than getting someone up to speed with their book knowledge about the job.
2. Hire slow
When hiring, the human resource manager may hurry the hiring process because there is urgent work that needs to be done by the new hire. But you mustn’t miss a step in your hiring process because you need to hire someone quickly. Be thorough when hiring your ideal colleague.
3. Do your research
With the internet, checking a potential employee’s CV is easier than in the past. If they have references on their CV, contact them to learn more about the person. If they have certificates or degrees check with the relevant authorities that they are valid. By spending time verifying a CV, you will save time, money, and reputation in the long run.
3. Look for the red flags
A new hire’s behaviour during an interview can give you an idea of how they will behave as an employee. Some red flags to look out for:
- Arriving late for an interview
- Not arriving for an interview
- Ask for an extension on a test or evaluation you sent them
- Submitting the test or evaluation late
- Ghosting you after you have offered them the final offer
- Asking to be paid for work done as an evaluation
All these flags should highlight potential problems you may have with your new hire should you welcome them on to your team.
4. Spend time with a potential new hire
Try to arrange a casual coffee date with the team or ask them to spend a day in your office to see how they will behave with your team if you hire them. This will give you time to observe their behaviour towards others and give you access to insight from others about whether the new hire will be successful or not.
5. Review your hiring process
Sometimes we hire badly because there is a bug in our hiring process. Look at your hiring process from finding candidates to onboarding and see where you can make improvements so that you won’t miss the red flags that mark a candidate as a potential bad hire. Look at the bad hires and analyse what parts of information that you received from the candidate could have misled you or that you just didn’t get from them.
By reviewing these ways, you will be able to work your way to hiring prime candidates for your business to prosper and grow in the future.
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