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Tips for finding the perfect hire?

StrategyDriven Talent Management Article | Anthony Fletcher | Tips for finding the perfect hire?

Finding someone perfect is one of the most difficult things one has today. Not only in terms of business but also generally in life. Whether it is your friends, your life partners or anyone, this is a pretty tough decision to make as it involves judging someone. It surely is hard but if done right it is not impossible and can be very easy.

To hire the perfect individual, you must look for their qualities and traits that can be of your benefit. Judging a fish for the ability to climb a tree is not the way to go. What you really have to do is focus on what they are applying for. For instance, if you are hiring a person looking to be a sales manager, focus on their communication skills and their thinking skills. What you do not have to focus on is how well the person knows the bookish definition. Those are important to some extent but are not the entire criteria. Same goes for innovations and technology. You need to find someone who is creative and thinks outside the box. Remember that there are millions of people who read the same books to become something, only those are truly successful who implement their knowledge in unique ways. What you have to look for is the quality of work in a person.

The perfect hire would be someone who clicks with you. Someone who picks up the pace as fast as you can. If someone is too slow then you will have an extra burden on your shoulder where you will have to spoon feed that person through everything. A hire is someone who should do the opposite of that. It is someone who is there to clean up the mess with you and be someone who makes your force strong. For that, you need to find a good match for your team. A person who is too fast and too initiative can also cause problems. This is because such people do not have the flexibility to mold and that is something very important when working with a team. Therefore, team management and team spirit is something which each perfect hire must have.

A person who is not willing to take risks is not ready for a job. This does not mean that you need to look for reckless behavior, this means that a perfect hire should have a very strong personality. If there is something that they are sure of would work in the benefit of the company and would cause no harm to it, they should take that chance instead of waiting for someone higher in the hierarchy to do it. This happens when your potential employee is sharp enough to do so. This brings us to another important quality which is being street smart. A perfect hire should be good with statistics, he should also be well educated with all concepts clear but what he absolutely needs to have is the ability to use all that in the best way. Knowing everything is easy but acting on it is not. Thus, you must look for these things in a hire.

A good screening system is what saves you from a lot of trouble. If this is not good then you can lose all the good potential hires and end up with the ones who aren’t suitable for that position. This is why you must make sure that everyone who is involved in the procedure of screening the best candidates has a clear idea as to what you are looking for so that they keep an eye out for the best of the lot. All of this sounds pretty corporate but this is because we are using corporate terms for all this. Every decision in life is made like that if we think about it. We narrow down the decision and then choose what is best. Due to this reason, it is very important to check for everything like this in the business world. The potential candidates should be the ones who truly deserve and those who actually fit and those who are willing to work as the company works.

Commitment is also a very important thing you should look for. If the hire lacks commitment that means that they will give you a tough time ahead. They will slack at work and will also not take their work seriously. Look for commitment and the rest will fall in place as well.


About the Author

StrategyDriven Expert Contributor | Anthony FletcherAnthony Fletcher, Sr is a former athlete and current business expert. He is the owner and president of My Future Consulting, Inc and Integrity Sports Agency and has over two decades of experience in executive management, innovative solutions, staff building, and recruitment. His consulting firm, founded on the philosophy that people are the most important part of a company, has revolutionized the future of staffing.

Take A More Strategic Approach To Hiring

I thought it would be interesting to explore the concept of “strategic” when it comes to hiring. Both in terms of positioning hiring within the context of the organisation and when undertaking hiring itself.

One of the challenges when hiring is to move it from a tactical activity, reluctantly undertaken when a vacancy arises, to a strategic activity that contributes to organisational excellence. Until hiring is firmly positioned as a key strategic activity, organisations will face problems such as weak talent pipeline, significant opportunity costs, higher hiring errors (it is worth taking the time to work out the cost of hiring errors), business stagnation and eroded organisational value. Additionally, ambitious business leaders will not invest sufficient time, early enough in their careers, to learning and honing their hiring skills. I have, over the years, worked with many great leaders (visionary, decisive, strategic, charismatic, brilliant) who simply cannot hire well. Yet, hiring the right or wrong people will have a huge impact on the organisation. Recruitment is both an art and a science and organisational leaders need to master both elements

In terms of hiring itself, I would suggest that you need to approach the activity strategically. Namely, to think longer term and put it in a broader context. This will enable you to build organisational capability and bench strength and develop the organisation for longer term growth. Thus, by taking a more strategic approach to recruitment you can recruit for the future at least as much as for the present. By this I mean that you can start to plan the skills and competencies you will need to be successful in the future. It also allows you to hire people today that you can develop into the roles you will need in the future which reduces the amount of ‘crisis’ hiring you need to do which is risky, expensive and can reduce motivation of more junior staff with high potential. I believe that a certain amount of external hiring (rather than all internal promotion) is healthy for an organisation but it needs to be intentional and not forced upon you due to the lack of well-developed internal staff.

Hiring needs to be part of an integrated talent management framework. This sounds complicated and clearly, for very large organisations, it can be, but even with much smaller organisations these elements should be in place: Planning the resources that you need, investing in resourcing (i.e. finding the talent), job design and organisation design (you may need to flex the organisation to allow people to grow and develop), management hiring and selection skills, staff engagement and retention, staff and management development. In my experience, large organisation can lose sight of the ‘why’ and become lost in the systems and infrastructure. They focus on developing complex processes but not deriving real value from them, or even worse, ignoring them when faced with decisions such as a senior promotion. And smaller organisations do not always think broadly enough and can make short term hiring decisions. In my experience, one of the main causes of slow growth in smaller organisations is that they do not hire early enough, or strategically enough.


About the Author

StrategyDriven Talent Management Article | Hiring Staff | Take A More Strategic Approach To HiringLisette Howlett is author of The Right Hire: Attract And Retain The Best People, a licensed Sandler Trainer located in London Central, and she has fifteen years of global change leadership and business development experience. Howlett is called upon by business owners of small and medium-sized companies for strategy and business development. Her experience includes financial services, technology, pharma/biotech, manufacturing, IT, media, recruitment and professional services.

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What You Should Consider When Hiring Your First Employee

When you own a small business, you’d expect that over time it’ll start to grow. As it grows there’ll be more tasks to deal with and not enough resources for it.  Help will be needed to manage your build up of tasks, in which case it might be worth considering hiring your first employee. It could be seen as a big step as you’ll now have to teach someone else how you run your business and you’ll be letting someone into something that’s really special to you. But if your business requires extra resources and you want it to grow further, it’s the jump you have to take. So, here are the things you need to consider when hiring your first employee.

What are the Requirements for the Job?

It’s good first of all to identify exactly what person you require to fit a job role and the skills they need. Note down what it is this person needs for them to be successful in the role you’ve put on offer. From running the business and working on day to day tasks, you’ll know where you need the help and what it takes for it to be completed. After you’ve done this, you should get a better idea of what you’re looking for to put into the job specification.

How Does your Brand Look to Others?

SImilar to how customers use a brand to buy services and products from, you want to be able to show the same to potential job candidates too. They should be able to benefit from working in the business and want to be attracted by your business in some way to apply for the job. You could conduct some market research on what others think of your brand, or just ask close family and friends. It’ll help candidates understand what you do so it can help them decide whether it’s right for them.

Do You Offer Any Training?

If there’s space for an employee to grow, it can be a great plus in attracting candidates. This is, of course, dependant on the type of person you’re looking for, as someone more experienced may not necessarily need the training. Someone who’s ambitious though may see training as a valuable asset for later in their career.

What Type of Working Hours Will You Be Offering?

Nowadays, there are more people looking to distance themselves away from typical 9-5 working hours, as flexible working becomes more popular. Consider the type of working hours you’ll be offering as flexible working hours is known to be more popular when candidates are looking for jobs.

Do You Have Any Perks That Come With the Job?

It can difficult when jobs don’t have a good work-life balance. It can be more appealing to job seekers when there are benefits in the role as it can have a great effect on morale, encouraging a better work ethic. Within the job description be sure to outline any benefits that you may be offering as it’s likely more people will consider working for you.

Writing Up a Contract

Let’s say that you’ve managed to find your successful candidate, and you can’t wait for them to start work. Bear in mind that details in a contract are one of the most important things when hiring a new employee. This is crucial in making sure all parties involved are on the same page and everyone’s protected, including your business. If you’re unsure of how to write up a contract there’s always employment solicitors that you can involve who can help you along the process.

It’s always worth considering the best ways your business can grow, and retaining your best staff for a successful future. Considering these aspects can go a long way as you want to make sure the first employee is the right employee.

You CAN Get The Staff These Days: Improving Your Hiring Process

Tired of hiring the wrong people for your company? Improving your hiring process could allow you to find better candidates, allowing you to build a stronger team of employees. Here are five ways that you can improve your hiring process.

Fine-tune your job description

Your job description should be carefully worded to attract as many applicants as possible. Advertise the perks of the job and use a professional sounding job title. Whilst you should detail certain qualities that you’re looking for, try not to make the job sound too demanding as you may scare off applicants – the bad ones and the good ones.

Use social media

There are all kinds of places to advertise job vacancies including job listing sites, newspapers and public bulletins. Social media is fast becoming one of the best places to advertise jobs. It’s also a great means of screening applicants to check that they’re the right fit. LinkedIn is one of the best social media platforms for screening applicants as it tells you which previous job people have worked. You may also want to check someone’s Facebook profile – even if it’s set to private, an inappropriate profile picture could be enough to tell you that a certain candidate isn’t right for you.

Create an online tests and quizzes

Online tests and quizzes are great ways of deciding if people are the right fit for your job. This could be a personality test, a decision-based quiz or test of knowledge. Afterwards, you can look at the results and determine which candidates should progress forwards. Online quizzes could save you having a trial shift and could help to weed out applicants that are good blaggers.

Hire a recruiter

To save yourself time and increase the range of your search, you could hire a recruiter. This will cost you extra, but it could help you to find better candidates. Recruiters can be useful when it comes to hard-to-fill vacancies – these may require very niche skills or could simply require gruelling responsibilities.

Leave yourself enough time

The biggest mistake that employers make when hiring new staff is rushing the process. By giving yourself more time to advertise the vacancy, read CVs and interview candidates, you’re more likely to make the right decision. Manage your time effectively so that you’re keeping interviews on schedule and replying to queries from applicants promptly. If you’re struggling to find the time to do this, you may be able to get help from a senior employee of yours or use a recruiter to handle aspects such as interviews. On top of leaving yourself enough time for the hiring process, remember that you’ll also need to pour some time into training this new staff member and taking them through introductory paperwork. Many employees that leave soon after being hired do so because they haven’t been trained properly or haven’t been made to feel welcome – even if you’re hiring someone with ample experience, you company may have a different way of doing things, so help them to adjust.

What to look for when hiring college graduates

StrategyDriven Talent Management Article | What to look for when hiring college graduates

In business, hiring new recruits is crucial to success — they bring fresh thinking and can challenge the existing paradigms of your corporation. A steady stream of prospective employees is likely knocking on your door daily, and even more so around summer time when college and university students finish their final year.

As a recruitment officer, it’s your responsibility to bring in the talent. With so many resumes and applications to decipher, what should you look for, to ensure you interview — and ultimately hire — the best possible candidate?

Evidence of critical and strategic thinking

Use your application process to pose salient questions, requiring candidates to evidence strategic thinking and the ability to address both sides of an argument. You’re not so much looking for the individual’s ethics or values here, but their capacity to form and deliver their point of view in a creative and compelling way.

The ability to work in a team

An applicant’s college experience will illustrate if they are a team player — whether they played a team sport, or performed in college stage shows, you want employees who understand and respect the significance of working together towards a shared goal.

Look for specialized degrees

Most resumes include an abundance of experience, however, you need to learn how to filter out what isn’t relevant and focus on what is useful. While many people will mention all their experiences, if someone only has leadership skills as a secondary skillset and no actual qualification in this area, then you may have to find someone else who does have the qualifications you’re looking for.

If you feel you need more information, then research the institution where they received their further education. While some colleges offer a multitude of degrees, some colleges have a more focused curriculum, so their students can specialize in certain fields. For instance, if you’re looking for a new head teacher, then someone who has studied at NEC (New England College) and undergone a Doctorate of Education (Ed.D.) could have more honed in leadership skills than someone who didn’t.

Resilience

‘Resilience’ is defined as the ability to withstand the pressures of college life, and emerging positive and ready into the professional world. You want to build your company around people who thrive under pressure, rather than falter.

Interpersonal skills, if relevant to your business niche

Not all professions require advanced social skills — indeed, businesses in Silicon Valley are famously seeing past prejudices and assumptions, to hire individuals on the autistic spectrum in their computer technology and software development teams.

However, if the ability to work collaboratively is pivotal to your work then you’ll want to test prospective employees on this skill. Building upon evidence of team and relationship prowess, use the interview to pose challenging questions to delve further — “Tell me about a time you’ve had to manage conflict in a study group?” or “You’ve seen that a friend is going through a bad time, how would you intervene to help?” are both revealing questions to ask.