White Papers & Articles

​There’s one thing which has a direct impact to the success a business experiences throughout the year – hiring.  Do it right, you’ll probably have a good year.  Do it wrong, well, let’s just say you’ll quickly find yourself heading down crap creek without a paddle.  

​Hiring is an art and a science combine.  It’s a tricky process, so much so Harvard Business Review cited 80% of employee turnover is due to bad hiring decisions.  Failing to hire the right people can also have a big impact to the company’s financials.  According to Dice, an online job board, poor hiring decisions for employees earning $100,000 annually lead to an average cost of $250,000. Basically, if the hiring decision you make ends poorly you can expect that mistake to represent 2.5 times the cost of whatever the salary of the person is you are hired. If they’re at an executive level the cost is even higher.

Long and short, your ability to make the right hiring decisions in 2019 will be crucial to the success of your business, your fellow employees, your newly hired employees and your own career.

Approaching the hiring process with a strategic game plan allows us to increase our chances of successful hiring exponentially while overcoming fears and apprehension along the way.  Previously I had shared in another article 15 hiring tips to find the best employees.  15 is a lot, who’s got time for that many tips!  Therefore, I’ve summarized it to the top 7 most tips you need to take into consideration when hiring.  For the full article and descriptions of each of these tips click here.

Looking to hire successfully in 2019  Follow these seven tips:
1.      Know & Share Your WHY
2.      Know What You Want Before You Interview
3.      Know Your Non-Negotiables
4.      Hire Character Over Competency
5.      Share Your Leadership Philosophy
6.      Ensure Your Interview Process & Collaborators Are Tight & Timely
7.      Challenge Your Own Mindset

​​It’s amazing to learn than an estimated 70% of companies don’t have a specific process they follow to ensure their hiring process is streamlined and effective.  As a result HBR identified that 80% of turnover is due to poor hiring decisions which can be directly correlated to a lack of planning and consistent processes along the way. 

While this sounds scary, we do know what it takes to be successful in the hiring process.  We know this because we can look at where company’s struggle in the hiring process and then use that information to improve our own processes. 

The eight reasons company’s struggle to hire great people are, in no particular order:

1. The WHY Failure: the current market is a candidates market, not an employers market therefore employers need to be able to share their story and their WHY for being in business and how that translates into a successful career with their company
2. Don’t Know What You’re Looking For: Company’s often use the interviewing process to help them figure out what they want in a candidate.  You should know this before you ever talk to a candidate about a job.
3. Unrealistic Expectations: Hiring manager has unrealistic expectations and makes hiring decisions based on being able to perform immediately rather than long term success
4. Everyone is Involved: the interviewing panel or team consists of 4+ people; most of the time each person is interviewing candidates for what’s important to them, not a common agreed upon pre-existing set of criteria
5. Inexperienced Interviewers: often times people on the interviewing panel or team don’t know how to interview people correctly therefore they tend to make decision based on if they like the person or if the interview impressed them, not if they can do the job and help the company
6. Job Discrepancy: The job description used to search and vet candidates isn’t the same as the real job responsibilities
7. Interview Process: it’s horrificically long, requiring candidates to jump through hoops like a tiger at the circus
8. Disrespect: Candidates are often disrespected going through the interview process (this happens all the time and is one of the quickest ways to lose a great candidate; disrespect comes in the form of wasting people’s time, not getting back to people, treating them poorly during the onsite interview, etc.)

Key Takeaway:  Be prepared to lead your hiring process with your company’s WHY and get a plan in place!

Action Item: Craft a specific plan for your hiring process including what you need in a new employee.  Get a couple key people involved, ensure they are trained on how to interview, while making sure everyone is on the same page with what the company needs in the new person before you start interviewing.  Everyone should be interviewing using the same criteria and scoring. Decision making should be left up to one or two people, not a kumbaya group agreement.
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