7 Steps To Successful Hiring

1.     The first step is to understand what you are hiring for and what the critical factors are for that position’s success.  This understanding will be the basis for where you search for an individual and why you are searching for that individual.  You need to be clear on the outcomes that are expected from this position and what kind of person as well as what kind of qualifications are needed.  Define the values, outcomes, and type of person that you are looking for as the perfect candidate for the position.

2.     The second step in the process is preparation.  You need to outline the types of behavioral questions that will get you the information needed about that person.  In other words, set up various scenarios that would have to be dealt with by the person.  Your objective is to identify their response type and determine if it fits with what you need.  You will also need a folder to hold the candidate files, a copy of the job description for comparison to the candidates, and your success pattern that you developed from internal top performers.  The success pattern is ideally created using pre-hire testing mechanisms that allow for testing existing people and then comparing potential hires to the scores of your existing performers.

3.     Conducting your Cloud Interview is next.  This process uses www.cloudinterview.com and allows you to interview your top 5 to 10 candidates without having to bring them in for the interview.  The process is simple.  You go to your Cloud Interview account and create a question category for this type of position.  Next, you record questions into that category that you will use for the interview itself.  Third, you add in the collaborators (people who will evaluate the candidates) and then add the candidates.  The interview wizard walks you through the process.  After each person interviews in front of their own computer on their own schedule, the collaborators will rate each of their responses and add supporting comments.  This allows the system to rank order the candidates from best to worst of the ones interviewed.  This brings us to step 4:

4.     Assess for Fit.  You want to use the assessment instrument that you have available to assess your top three candidates.  You will compare them to the success pattern that you created in step 2.  You are looking for areas where they don’t match up to your top performers.  Any of these areas where they don’t match will indicate the need for development of that individual in order to make them successful.  Just know that the more they are outside of the success pattern zone, the more work it will take to make them successful and the less likely they are to stay and win with your organization.

5.     The final interview comes next.  Most people will still interview the top 2, or even the top 3 people, unless there is a major discrepancy in their pattern matching from the previous step.  In the final interview, you want to have all of the key stakeholders present to interview the candidates.  You want to ask them new behavioral questions.  And, you want to still have an objective rating system, just like you have inside of Cloud Interview.  By adding numeric values to responses, a simple average can determine who was the best of the 3 in the eyes of the interviewers.  I would recommend that 25% weight be given to the assessment and 35% be given to their work history, education and experience.  The remaining 40% weight would come from the interviews.

6.     Verification is more important than most people realize.  Verification of work history, references, education and any other important factor should seen as necessary and not as extra.  It really is amazing what information you can get from references if you just ask in the right manner.  Asking questions about their eligibility for rehire and why or why not can be eye opening.  Listen for the way in which the person answers in order to know what they are “really” saying about the candidate.

7.     The conditional offer of employment is a letter that you present to the top candidate letting them know you want to offer them a job if…  The if portion of the last statement indicates that if they can fulfill certain absolutes presented by the manager or the hiring manager, then they are welcomed at your organization.  The requirement would be that they have to take 24 hours to think about it.  If they return the letter with their signature 24 hours later, then they are hired.  If they don’t return it after 72 hours, then you both just go your separate ways.  This gives them an out if they don’t want to fulfill the obligatory requirements that you need done.

By following these seven steps, you should up your odds of getting the right person on your team from the basic 17% (According to a study conducted by Harvard) to over 80% (same study).  This model eliminates the guess work from hiring and creates predictable and positive results.

Let me know if you have any questions or if I can help in any way!