Hiring Mistakes to Avoid Now

Hiring the wrong employee for a job can not only diminish your business’s reputation, but can also cost you a significant amount of money.

Costs that go into hiring an employee that may not ultimately fit the bill includes:

• money spent on job listings
• talent searches
• screening process
• time it takes to conduct an interview
• job on-boarding
• time and effort in training

The U.S. Department of Labor estimates that a bad hire can cost at least 30 percent of the employee’s first year earnings.

Other drawbacks of a bad hire is loss of motivation of fellow employees, which can directly affect the productivity of your workers, costing your business even more money.

Here are three ways you can guarantee you are hiring the right worker.

1. Improve Your Interview Process

How a candidate answers your questions during an interview can tell you everything you need to know about a potential employee. Prepare questions that tell you if the candidate has adequate skills and experience for the role you are looking to fill. Better yet, give candidates scenarios that may occur on a day to day basis in the job and see how they would respond in a given situation. Being told a candidate has a certain skill set and demonstrating those skills on the spot, will better reveal their potential to succeed.

Pro-Tip

Ensure that a current employee who has the most experience in that particular sector of the business is included in the interview process. Having a fellow employee who understands the unfilled role can weed out any potential candidates that would have seemed fine to the hiring manager.

2. Refine the Job Description

The start to any hire is making sure there is a job posting advertised. This job posting should have a description that accurately conveys the details of the role. There should be a clear skill set needed in order to fulfill the role, and details of duties they may have on a day-to-day basis, including things that may be added over time. If there is required experience needed for the role, make it clear that only candidates with such experience will receive interviews. This will ensure that you are not wasting time with potential applicants as it will deter potential candidates from wasting their time as well.

Pro-Tip

Give candidates a short summary of the business, its values, and goals. This will likely help the qualified candidates pursue the position, and can be a great interview question to see if they can tell you why they want to work for your business specifically. If the employees and employers ‘why’ can connect, you are likely hiring the right candidate.

3. Prioritize Pre-Employment Tests and Employee Onboarding

Do not skimp on background checks, calling references, drug screenings, confirming employment eligibility and skill assessments. Ensuring that these five tasks are completed before offering the job to a candidate will save you time and money overall. If a potential employee has a criminal history or fails a drug test, you immediately know the candidate has not been honest with their past, which can tell you a lot about how their future performance will be (rephrase later.)

Having candidate’s complete skill assessments prior to hiring lets you know if they have the necessary skills needed to be successful. Once your candidate checks all of these boxes, it is time to hire. But guaranteeing your employee’s success does not stop there. It is essential for new hires to feel they can communicate any questions, comments, or concerns. Staying in touch for the next several weeks, or even setting a quantifiable goal for them to achieve by a certain date will let you know sooner rather than later if they are the right fit.

It is also important that they are given the correct tools to succeed, whether it be the right workspace, safety equipment, or company handbook.

Lastly, helping your employee feel welcome and part of the team will increase comfortability and connection, therefore increasing happiness and productivity. Try hosting a meet and greet with new employees over coffee and donuts to help facilitate this process.

Pro-Tip

These essential five steps should be taken care of by your local staffing agency: background checks, calling references, drug screenings, confirming employment eligibility and skill assessments which can save you a lot of time and money in the future.

To learn more on why it is important to confirm your employment eligibility (link) and how to do it, please click here.

While these strategies, tests, and processes may incur costs for your business, you will actually be saving more time, money, and productivity had you hired the right, qualified candidate for the job.