Recruiting exceptional staff can be difficult in a competitive playing field. Strategic controls can help assure that the people who you bring on to your team are up to the task. Here are some ways that hiring managers can improve their hiring processes to go smoother and to effectively screen for the most qualified candidates.
Make Interviews Meaningful
Many job interviews are conducted in a way that don’t really give a hiring manager a strong sense of what a person will be like to work with day-to-day. People feel nervous, and they tend to answer cookie-cutter interviews with the responses that they assume employers want to hear. Try to guide interviews in a way that averts overreliance on standardized questions and ask unique and open ended questions that give people the opportunity to speak about their experiences and what matters to them in a job setting.
Don’t Exclude Driving Records from Your Background Checks
A company that employs a workforce that works in more than one location or is constantly on the road needs to give careful consideration to the importance of examining applicants’ driving records. When employees drive in the course of their regular job duties, a company could potentially be liable if they are involved in an accident, regardless of whether an employee is driving a company vehicle or his or her own vehicle. A driving record background check is a vital risk mitigation strategy and it can allow a company to ascertain that its drivers don’t have a worrisome history of accidents or traffic violations. This key step in the screening process could help a company successfully defend a lawsuit that involves a claim of negligent hiring, a frequently used basis in negligence actions that are brought against businesses.
Perform a Skills Test
If the position that you need to fill requires a specific skill set or experience with a particular job function, it’s advisable to use testing to get an accurate evaluation of the skills that an applicant can bring to a position. While a skills test should be relatively short in length, it should be through enough to give you a clear picture of a candidate’s strengths or weaknesses
A well-managed hiring process requires due diligence and patience. Don’t settle for an applicant simply because you’re not impressed with your overall candidate pool. Hiring the wrong candidate can be a costly and time consuming error, so be sure to give the process the time and attention that it deserves.