How do we find the BEST people?
The answer to this question will have a profound impact on your organization. It can mean, quite literally, the difference between success and failure.
The recruiting process is just that: a PROCESS-driven event that will test every level of discernment and intuition that you have.
Let me repeat: it is a PROCESS!
Hiring and recruiting is not, however, an exact science. The process must be practiced and refined constantly. This continues long after a hiring decision is made. Has an employee surprised us in some way? What did we miss when we were interviewing and hiring? Why did we miss it? We must continually critique ourselves by asking for frank and direct questions.
As with most things, a consistent structure leads to more predictable results. So we base our recruiting and hiring process around four basic questions:
- Can the candidate do the job?
- Do they want to do the job?
- Are they coachable and humble?
- How long will they stay?
As we work through the answers to each of these, we must be clear-eyed about our candidates' strengths, weaknesses, successes, failures, education, past leaders, or mentors (either for good or ill). We must constantly be asking whether the candidate will offer our organization a net benefit, while at the same time evaluating whether we and our job will be beneficial to them.
There is no greater predictor of future performance than past actions, and there is little that costs an organization more than undoing a bad hire. When we take the hiring process seriously and invest time and energy into thoroughly working through the process, our payoff can be enormous. Have we ever made a quick hire because we needed a spot filled? Overlooking red flags in the name of expediency? We all know this rarely works out in the long run.
We ultimately must look at hiring as the means through which we secure our future, for those that we bring into our organization will define it. If we add strong teammates that fit us well, everyone will benefit--the new hire that is a good fit, existing staff that sees that we care enough about them to complement them with good people, customers that respect and admire our organization’s culture--everyone!
The bottom line is that we must get results, and the best people will get those results. We must give hiring and recruiting the attention it deserves, and we will all win!
On a scale of 1-10, where is your organization’s recruiting process on hiring the best?
What are some areas for improvement?
I would love to hear your success stories on how you and your organization have conquered the recruiting process!
