Unemployment is higher than most people would prefer it these days, creating a plethora of potential qualified candidates at your disposal if you're a hiring business. With access to a large pool of well-qualified candidates, it's a great opportunity to bring an "A" player to your team—if the hiring process is done properly.
If you run a business, it's fair to assume you're a planner—and that's exactly how you should start your hiring process. Create a model of your ideal employee, and then identify candidates with the attributes you've outlined. From there, it's time to recruit those candidates that match your outline.
As the
article,
Finding and Hiring the "A" Players
, points out, when developing the model for the ideal employee, start with the end. Decide what you want their performance to be like and what results you want from it. This allows you to identify the behaviors and skills needed from a candidate to bring on board. For example, if you're hiring someone for your call center, you're looking for traits like: strong attention to detail, good listening and problem-solution skills, ability to deal with conflict, etc.
The hiring process can become a mundane one, so it's easy to fall into the trap of going with the flow. It's important to make you're truly examining what traits will yield success for the open position.
Resume reviews will only get you so far since they're just a minor glimpse into the potential candidate's arsenal. Implementing some kind of assessment will give you a bigger picture of what you're working with. What that assessment is exactly is up to you. You'll want to make sure you it examines performance alongside demonstrated behaviors. These are reliable predictors of how well a candidate will perform in a job.
When everything is identified, make like a yearbook and select candidates most likely to succeed. Provide them with a realistic preview of the open position—this is a step a lot of small businesses skip. Sometimes doing this will make some candidates opt out of the process and prevent you from hiring someone wrong for the job.
The hiring process is not one to rush. When you are ready to make a new hire, don't wait until the last second. Plan it out, discuss it, and then execute.
For more information on the proper steps you should take when in the hiring process, visit
and read
.