Still Using Your Gut as a Hiring Strategy?

Still Using Your Gut as a Hiring Strategy?

Sure, she looks like a great employee… but what does your road map say?

It’s popular advice: Trust your gut. And in many situations, it’s a useful guide for making decisions. But you shouldn’t be hiring based on your gut; when it comes to your business, your brain needs to be the leader of HR.

Where The Gut Goes Wrong
This isn’t to say your instincts and how you interact with somebody shouldn’t have a bearing on your hiring decisions. If you don’t think you can spend eight hours a day, five days a week with a potential employee, you shouldn’t hire them. But there is more to the hiring process than likability.

Hiring is a complex process, and it only becomes more complex as your company grows. One bad hire can cause problems up and down a company’s structure; time has to be taken to mediate disputes, business matters can turn into personal discussions, and in extreme cases, you can lose good employees who are sick of dealing with their co-workers. So, if you can’t use your gut, what should you use?

The Hiring Road Map
No hiring process will be completely objective: people are still people and will make decisions based on more than just logic. But by using a clear, objective road map as your method of hiring employees, you won’t have to worry about your gut steering you wrong. Need assistance in developing your road map? Creating outcomes? Job postings? Assessments? Interview questions? HR Matters can help! Please contact us. It starts with a hiring road map, a standardized approach that allows you to more objectively and intelligently assess candidates. Start with the job itself: What are the responsibilities that need to be fulfilled? What competencies are necessary to the role? How much experience does the manager deem necessary to get the job done? Who will this employee be working the most closely with, and what other departments will they interact with in the course of doing their jobs? And most importantly, you need to determine the outcomes – what does this person need to accomplish in order to be successful? Lastly, consider using a behavioral assessment tool to help you get beneath the surface of the resume and interview.

A roadmap finds the right employee, every time.

A roadmap finds the right employee, every time.

This will lead you to the hiring committee. Any department that will need to work with a new employee should at least have a chance to evaluate potential candidates. This doesn’t mean they should all be looking at resumes; it’s unlikely most of your hiring committee will have the time or inclination. But they’ve got a stake in this new employee working out, and should be part of the process.

Draft those needs and requirements into a job posting, and put it out there to find candidates. Don’t hesitate to work personal connections and professional associations to find other possibilities, but try to direct everyone to the posting to apply. Good candidates will give themselves an honest assessment and make the decision for themselves; self-selection is a useful HR tool.

As you, or your HR department, sift through resumes, use your road map. Once you have identified viable candidates, be sure to first interview by phone, using questions you have determined beforehand. Make sure every department that needs to work with them has at least a few minutes to assess the candidate on the phone or in person.

Once you’ve interviewed everyone, compare notes. Who fit in best with your company culture? How satisfactory were their answers? Does anybody foresee any possible disputes that might make another candidate more desirable? Developing a candidate scorecard is a great tool to keep the process as objective as possible.

No hiring process will be completely objective: people are still people and will make decisions based on more than just logic. But by using a clear, objective road map as your method of hiring employees, you won’t have to worry about your gut steering you wrong. Need assistance in developing your road map? Creating outcomes? Job postings? Assessments? Interview questions? HR Matters can help! Please contact us.

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