How to Hire the Candidate (you Want) for Keeps

August 29, 2008

Every manager knows the costs—financial, emotional, and operational—of recruiting, hiring, training and retaining (or losing) quality employees.

Or should know them.

Every organization should step up to building a strategic foundation that helps ensure the right individuals are hired for the organization. And the organization is right for those individuals.

An organization should know what it takes for the candidate to fit the job/organization and for the job/organization to fit the candidate. With that knowledge as a foundation for successful hiring, the organization increases its success in holding onto those candidates who bring what the organization wants and needs.

Identification of Corporate Values.
The company should have identified its values clearly and specifically well before its current hiring situation. From initial visit through final interviews, those values should be shared with the candidate, discussed with the candidate, and scenariod for the candidate to play with.

How much will that show and tell the hiring professional about the candidates talents and the candidates fit? The more definitively an employee knows what matters to her organization, the more readily she engages her knowledge, skills, energy, and commitment for the good of the company. It’s safe to assume the hiring professional cannot accurately gauge the fit of the candidate who is not given opportunities to discuss, question, demonstrate (or deny) the fit, even in an impromptu situation.

Specifying Core Competencies per Job/Position.
Awareness of the competencies-to-job cannot “go without saying. Assumption that the interviewer and the candidate already know the expected competencies, makes it easy not to focus on them during the candidate search. When you assume, you may not speak explicitly (and listen explicitly) to the candidate about what skills, abilities, and talents he brings to the job. The candidate should not only fit the job; the job should fit the candidate. He deserves the chance to excuse himself from possible failure by seeing up front the absence of fit.

Seeing the Corporate Vision.
The individual should understand and be comfortable with the corporate vision. The corporate vision needs to be discussion material as part of the interview process. The candidate should be allowed to ask questions both small and large. Just as she asks about job expectations, she should also ask (and be encouraged to ask) about Big Picture areas like corporate vision. The hiring professional does company and candidate good service by conducting interviews that encourage such questions.

These components that influence a positive company-individual fit are but three of several. Their successful use rests initially in the Human Resources’ staffing arena. However, that success rests also with managers throughout the organization, for they are part of the screening/interviewing/selecting process. Suitable preparation ensures managers familiarity and comfort with the company-specific components: values, competencies and vision.

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