We often hear that employees are our most valuable asset in a business. It goes further than that I think. Selecting the right people is also crucial for excellence in management. Team this with the fact that in many cases employees are also the greatest cost in a business, and all arrows point towards the importance of getting the right people on board.
Herewith some tips:
Before making any decisions, review your business plans and objectives and review your current staff. Are your requirements really what you think they are? Is there anyone currently on your team who could fit the bill with some additional training? (Providing staff with training can sometimes be more efficient than recruiting new staff. It can also help you retain good staff.)
Identify the qualities of the best people currently in your team. What can you do to ensure you hire more of them in the future?
Create a detailed job description, and get everyone involved in the recruitment to agree to the job description and the characteristics of the person required.
Brian Tracy, chairman and CEO of Brian Tracy International, suggests that his Law of Three dramatically increases the ability to make good hires. We have certainly found it has helped us.
The Law of Three:
1. Interview at least three candidates for a job. This practice forces you to slow down and compare and contrast the qualities and characteristics of different people.
2. Interview the candidate that you like three different times. Remember, a job candidate will look the very best on the first interview. After that, there is a gradual deterioration as the screens fall away and the true person is revealed.
3. Interview the person you like in three different places. For some reason, many people have a “chameleon complex.” They appear a certain way in your office in the first interview and then seem to act and react differently when you move them into different environments.
4. Have any candidate that impresses you interviewed by at least three other people on your team. In too many cases, a candidate that one person considered to be ideal was roundly rejected by others in the team and, as it turned out, for good reason.
5. Check at least three references from the candidate. When you call, say something like, “We are interviewing this person for this particular job, doing these particular activities, and having these particular responsibilities.” You can then ask specific questions such as: Could you tell me some of the strengths or weaknesses that this candidate would have in performing a job like this? Is there anything you could tell me that would help me to make a better hiring decision? Would you hire this person back again if he applied to you for a job?
The third question is always key. If the answer is not an unequivocal “yes,” you should be very cautious about hiring the candidate in the first place.
6. Check references three deep: ask the given reference for the names of other people the candidate has worked with, so you can talk to those people, too. When you interview three additional people whose names do not appear on the candidate’s resume, you may be surprised at what you learn.
Once you have a prospective candidate, where possible put them through a test that mimics the work you would want them to do – why guess when you can know!
Good luck!
