Is this new employee going to be your next star, or your next disappointment?

Think about a new hire who you quickly knew would not work out…and one who you knew were going to be great.  In both situations, what were the signs you saw?  You had more than a  hunch, but often it is hard to put our finger on these clues.

Whether your new employee is a senior executive or a recent college graduate, three indicators tell us their trajectory.

There is nothing easy about screening candidates.  

​Mishires are costly in many ways.  We want to know all we can about a candidate because we think that's how we make the best decision.  More is better, right?  And with so much information at our fingertips thanks to the Internet, it is quite easy to learn a lot about someone.  You can see photos of them on Facebook, read Facebook posts, see their Twitter feed, Google them and learn what organizations they are part of and much more.  But does all of this go too far?

While the interest in more and more information is understandable, it does not equate to a better hire. It equates to noise, and potentially damaging noise at that. Damaging? Yes, because through online research you are likely gathering information that is not relevant to job performance and even information that puts you at risk of being accused of discrimination. (See this January 2014 article from Scientific American about a study on this.)

Often, employers are digging around for this additional information online because they lack clarity about what a person in a role needs to deliver, and they lack the structures and skills to evaluate a candidate's likelihood of success.  Understandably, this leads to doubt and insecurity when evaluating candidates. And this then leads to grasping for all the information one can get (and information online is just so easy) in order to appease the feeling of doubt.

Whether you hire 1,000 people annually, 10 or even 1, there is tremendous value in examining your hiring system, considering whether it’s as strong as it could be, and identifying opportunities for improvement.

But I know you have a ton of other stuff to do.  Why is this important?

A weak hiring system results in wasted time by you and your employees, vacant seats for longer than necessary, and poor hiring decisions, all of which negatively impact revenue, client service, and morale. 

It’s possible that you may not even be aware that your hiring system has weak points: the “You don’t know what you don’t know,” phenomenon.  For example, you may think that you have an efficient and streamlined process, but little do you know that there are inexpensive and easy-to-operate software options that can save tremendous time and help you make even better decisions.

Whether you’re happy with your hiring system right now or it’s causing you known frustration, here are 10 key questions that can help you identify opportunities.

1. Do our job descriptions paint a crystal clear picture of 1) what someone will do, 2) what is necessary for success (including critical behaviors and skills), and 3) how performance will be measured? (HINT: Categorizing responsibilities and giving time allotment to categories can take job descriptions from being sketches to high-res pictures of the position.)
2. Are openings promoted in a way that attracts our target candidates?  Do candidates see why working for us is better than working for our competitor?  (HINT: Job descriptions don’t do this.)
3. Am I using the current best sources for connecting with candidates?
4. Does our means for collecting information on candidates leverage automation and provide the ability to search candidate information easily?
5. Are we smartly getting candidate information through questionnaires, assessments, tests, etc. before investing our time doing interviews?  Are we seeing too many “bummer” candidates in interviews and, if so, how can we decrease that?
6. Do our interviews support being able to make apples-to-apples comparisons of candidates?  (HINT: Everyone making up questions on the fly makes this hard.)
7. Do our candidates think we're fabulous?
8. Are we doing anything in our process that opens us up to risk of accusations of unfair hiring practices?
9. Do our new hires have a great experience getting started with us?
10. What do our newest hires say about their experience applying, interviewing and starting?

No matter how you do this, I hope you will take an hour or so to think through these 10 questions and determine how strong your hiring system is.  After all, your talent is the foundation for your company’s success.