We all understand the costs, both monetary and otherwise, that a poor hire can have on our business. For small businesses, this impact can be detrimental as an inappropriate hire can have an immeasurable effect on your existing team and ultimately your bottom line results.
There is a huge range of pre -employment assessments, tests, and tools which employers can use to help them through the hiring process. Whilst I certainly don’t advocate using all of them (you would be spending much more time and money than is necessary), I do suggest using an appropriate mix of the right tools for your organisation and the specific role. So to ensure that your next hire is the best possible fit for your team, what other tools are available to assist you?
- Interviews – whilst not always the most reliable, interviews remain the most widely used recruitment and selection tool. Phone interviews and face to face interviews should form some part of your recruitment process. The key to making interviews a success for you is in asking the right questions, keeping the process consistent across all applicants and remaining impartial throughout the process.
- Skills Testing – particularly useful for positions which require a level of competency in any specific software programs, computer operations or ‘testable’ skills such as customer service responses and alike. These assessments are regularly used by recruiters and are available to you, generally at a fee, through any number of recruitment and HR service providers.
- Personality / Psychometric Assessments – perfect for assessing team fit, motivation, and work styles around customer service, sales and a range of other industry specific skills. Whilst many employers still see these assessments as unnecessary and unreliable in our experience they can be an excellent tool to help hone your interview questions and assess appropriateness for your current team.
- Aptitude and competency based assessments – similarly to the two types of testing and assessment listed above these tests are great for industry specific skills. This may include numerical reasoning assessments for accountants.
- Reference Checks – it’s an oldie but a goodie, past behaviour predicts future behaviour. Ensure you are conducting your reference checks with previous managers who they reported to, and ask specific questions relevant to the skills and attitudes you need in the new recruit.
- Police checks and working with children checks – depending on the industry and role, these checks may be appropriate to have conducted. In many industries these checks are a standard and potentially compulsory check to maintain quality ratings, and for employers they can provide sound peace of mind.
- Don’t forget your network – all of the tools mentioned so far are fairly standard, but don’t forget to think outside the square. If you know previous employers personally, or even colleagues, friends of customers, don’t be afraid to pick up the phone and ask for some general feedback (provided it doesn’t jeopardise their existing employment of course).
There are probably a raft of other tools available which I haven’t mentioned which may be available to you, but this covers the most popular. Before you next recruit think about which tools could be valuable to you in ensuring your hire is the right fit for your organisation, and the specific role.
