When you are looking to hire someone for a role, you will soon discover that there are many candidates; there certainly won’t be a shortage of people applying for the job. The problem is that not all candidates are going to be suitable; some might not have any experience, and some might simply be applying for any job they see in the hopes that one will work out for them. Although this might be a good tactic for them, it’s not very helpful for you or your business.
So, just how can you ensure you aren’t wasting your time or theirs? How can you ensure you hire the right candidate? Here are some useful tips to give you a better idea of what to do.
Choose Someone Career Oriented
Unless you are hiring for a specialized position, your candidate doesn’t necessarily have to have specific experience in your field. What they do need to have is a career goal – they need to be career oriented. They need to want to move forward, do their best, and become better at what they do. In other words, they want your job.
Rather than seeing this as an issue and a threat, it’s actually a good point. If you are hiring someone who absolutely wants to get ahead in their career, you know they will work extremely hard, do everything that is asked of them and more besides, and work on their own initiative. If you hire someone who is just looking for a job to pay the bills but who has no interest in the sector or the business, they are not going to be as hard working as someone who has does have that interest.
The Experience Question
Although it is in complete contrast to what we have mentioned above, there will be times when experience is definitely required.
Experience in some areas is always going to be useful, and it will make a difference to who you hire depending on just how specialized the work is. If you need someone to manage your office, they should have office management experience, but they don’t have to have experience in your sector, which means the field of candidates is more open. If you need someone to work on the recycling balers from recyclingbalers.com, for example, you will want someone who has used such machinery before. Otherwise, you are going to have to spend a lot of time training them, and this is both costly and time consuming. There are, therefore, different levels of experience that you might need to look for in an interview or on a resumé.
Don’t be afraid to test the candidates on their knowledge, or even to give them a practical test. This will ensure that they fully are competent in the work you need them to do.
Consider The Culture Fit
Even if someone has all the skills you are looking for, and even if they have plenty of experience and are keen to do well, that doesn’t mean they are the ideal candidate for your business. You need to think of the culture of your company and decide whether or not the candidate’s personality and style are going to fit. There is no point in hiring someone who is going to be miserable in their work because they don’t enjoy the atmosphere of the office.
If you have your employees work from home, is the candidate who you are considering going to be comfortable with this? They might be very sociable and do better work around other people. The same is true of the opposite idea; if everyone works together in a big open-plan office, is that going to affect the candidate’s productivity if they prefer to work alone in a quiet space? Ask these questions during the interview and also take a look at their past work experience; where have they worked and what was the culture like there?
Think About An Intern
If your business is big enough to sustain one, an intern can be a great solution to the hiring question. You can find the best candidate for the job by having someone actually work for you. Keep watch on them and see if they have the skills, the knowledge, the talent, and the focus to be a permanent employee.
In this way, you will be able to determine how well they deal with stress, and what their strengths and weaknesses are, and you can make a better judgement about how well they will work for you.
If you do hire an intern, make sure you give them real work to do. Although you might be tempted to have them run errands, this is not going to give you any idea of whether they can do their jobs, and it’s not going to help them either.