How to Improve Your Quality of Hire

To make sure that businesses are getting the best results for their investment, many staffing professionals are measured against key performance indicators (KPIs), such as quality of hire. And while quality of hire may seem difficult to quantify, most organizations use staff retention rates, productivity levels and performance appraisals to assess the overall caliber of the candidates they’ve hired.

This means that hiring professionals need to consider more than just an applicant’s qualifications and experience when sourcing top talent. They also need to find someone who fits well within a team dynamic and wider company culture.

As such, it’s imperative that staffing professionals work toward improving this KPI. If you’re not sure where to start, here are a few tips to set you on the right path.

Use the hiring manager to your advantage. The first step in the hiring process is identifying the “hard skills” and qualifications that a candidate needs to have, in order to carry out the role you’re hiring for. This information is likely to come from the hiring manager in a straightforward list; but it’s vital that you dig a little deeper and find out what else they’re looking for in a candidate.

As such, take the time to organize a meeting or phone call to discuss their needs in full. Use this opportunity to understand the dynamic of their team. This includes the kind of personality traits a candidate would need to fit in seamlessly; and any other “soft skills” such as problem solving or communication that would make doing the role easier.

It’s really easy to focus on measurable requirements such as qualifications. However, if someone doesn’t have the right attitude or personality, it doesn’t matter if they’re fully qualified; they still won’t be the right fit. Ultimately, this will result in them moving on from the business sooner than expected, bringing down your retention rates and quality of hire in the process.

Advertise your roles effectively. One of the best ways to improve your quality of hire is to make sure you’re attracting the right candidates in the first place. While drafting a generic job advert might garner more applications, it’s likely that the quality of those candidates isn’t up to scratch.

This is the perfect time for you to put the information from the hiring manager to good use. Before writing anything, sit down and figure out what would attract the kind of candidate you’re looking for. Is it the job itself? Perhaps it’s the flexible working hours or company benefits? Whatever the main selling point is, be sure to lead with this in the job advert.

Of course, you’ll still need to communicate the responsibilities and requirements for the job. This section of your advert should be clear, concise and offer as much information as possible. A great way to present this effectively is by using bullet points.

Finally, don’t forget to promote the company culture too. You need to attract a candidate that’s interested in the way your client operates. For example, if a ‘work hard, play hard’ environment is what you’re hiring for, you won’t want to attract a laid-back candidate with a laissez faire attitude.

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Use the right platforms. In order to find the best candidates, it’s vital that you put your job advert in front of as many people as possible. This means, as well as advertising it on your company website and social media channels, you should also employ the use of a job board.

Using job boards is a great way to get your vacancy in front of thousands of candidates who are actively looking for a role. It also means you’re more likely to receive a larger number of applications, increasing your chances of finding the perfect candidate.

However, it’s no secret that unemployment is at a record low. While this is great news for the American economy, it makes the job of hiring professionals more difficult, as there are fewer active candidates in the job market.

As such, you might need to think outside of the box and target passive candidates, too. You might choose to do this through LinkedIn, but you should also consider investing in access to an extensive resume database. This enables you to search millions of resumes in seconds, find that perfect candidate and improve your quality of hire.

Don’t drag it out. It’s important to remember that the best candidates are also likely to be attending interviews elsewhere. As such, if you drag out the process or make it too complicated, then the candidate may lose interest in the job. Or, another company may beat you to the hire.

As such, the best way to ensure that you don’t put candidates off is to advise your clients to keep the hiring process short. We recommend using no more than one screening phone call and two face-to-face meetings as part of the interview schedule.

However, if you’ve had several applications for your vacancy and you’re not sure how to pick a candidate, then you could implement a group interview as part of the process; this can be useful for narrowing down your options.

If you want to improve your quality of hire, it’s vital that you move quickly and don’t let these top candidates slip through your fingers. If you do, it could be detrimental for you and your client.

Improve your quality of hire. Implementing these changes won’t always be easy. It takes time and thought but it’s definitely worth all the hard work. If you can put these tips into practice, it will improve your quality of hire, and you’ll be setting yourself up as one of the best staffing professionals in the industry.

So what are you waiting for? Get started now!

 

Lee Biggins

Lee Biggins
Lee Biggins is the founder and CEO of Resume-Library.

Lee Biggins

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