How can you ensure that you hire the most qualified employees?
Here are twelve steps to hiring the most qualified employees:
Don’t Look Only When You Need Them
Assess Culture Fit
Have Cross-Department Interviews
Seek Professional Assistance
Industry Experience
Define What Optimal Success Is
Investigate Applicant References
Use Objective Data
Test Their Skills With a Small Project
Don’t Be Afraid to Press for the Specifics
Leverage LinkedIn Quizzes
Don’t Look Only When You Need Them
To ensure you hire the most qualified employees, always be looking for the right people, not only when you need them, but all the time. By cultivating long term relationships with potential team members, the great ones will rise to the top with their follow up skills, proven communication skills (through email and phone), and their accomplishments throughout your interactions.
Sharon Bondurant, The Finders
Assess Culture Fit
First and foremost, the candidate has to be someone we want to work with. No matter how qualified someone is, we have a “no a##hole” approach to hiring, so we ask questions like, “Do you tip your server at a restaurant?” or “What’s something you’ve done for someone else recently?” If the culture fit is there, we then look for candidates that bring something new to the table and come across as good problem solvers. What value can they add to our team on day #1? How willing are they to learn new things? These are two things we hold very important in interviews.
Zack McCarty, Qwick
Have Cross-Department Interviews
The best way to ensure you are hiring the most qualified candidates is to have multiple people in your organization interview them. In our company, we like to have at least three different people in different departments on interviews and assign them to analyze various perspectives. For example, I assess cultural fit, another manager analyzes technical skills, and my CEO will determine their passion for the company. If employing this idea, just be sure to not have too many people in the mix for it could actually cause gridlock and confusion!
Nikitha Lokareddy, Markitors
Seek Professional Assistance
To really ensure that you are hiring the best, most qualified employees for a position, sometimes it’s best to reach out to a professional. Hiring a recruitment agency to fill open roles promises quality candidates because they are specialized in certain industries or functions, which means they already have a pool of highly skilled candidates at their disposal. They have the expertise to not only find great candidates but also make sure that these candidates are indeed a great fit for a certain position.
Ryan Nouis, TruPath
Industry Experience
Learning a new job at a new company is hard. Having to learn about an entire industry on top of job responsibilities and company culture makes the task of onboarding a new employee even more difficult. Prioritizing industry experience in the candidate selection process can help ensure that your company will hire the most qualified employees.
Vicky Franko, Insura
Define What Optimal Success Is
The easiest way to hire the most qualified employees is to be hyper clear on what ‘qualified means’ to your organization and the role at hand. Does it really matter if someone has three years of experience versus two and a half years? Consider listing out what optimal success looks like in the role instead of just the tasks someone would do daily. If you know exactly how you want someone to add value to the organization both in the role and culturally, the candidates you advance are much more likely to be the most qualified.
Shayleen Stuto, TechnologyAdvice
Investigate Applicant References
I hire the most qualified employees by actually checking their credentials and recent employment history. Too often, many employers skip this process if a particular applicant stands out from the resume pile and interviews well. However, the one thing that paints a pretty clear picture of how an employee will perform for you, is how they performed for their previous employers. So, take the time to check an applicant’s references. It can save you time in hiring another employee, as well as other HR-related costs.
Amir Yazdan, GroMD
Hire in Alignment to Strategic Purpose
The most qualified employees are hired when you understand the strategic importance of the role being filled. In other words, how does this role tie back to the mission, vision, value proposition, and strategy of the organization? And, how are you evaluating candidates holistically, culture, and expertise, to find the one that would best align with the mission, vision, value proposition, and strategy? When we hire in alignment with strategic purpose, as opposed to hiring for the job description, we set ourselves up for success.
Parissa Behnia, Sixense
Use Objective Data
It takes intent and purpose to develop a process that gives you an advantage in hiring qualified employees. Using the typical methods (e.g. interviews and resumes), that really never worked effectively, is not the answer. Today, it is critical to use objective data in any business plans you have, especially hiring. Hiring is the beginning of the process for any employee so finding the right people to fit the job is critical to the organization’s success. So, use assessments at the beginning of the process to find out what the person is really like, validate it against the resume and interview results, and make a qualified decision. Then use the assessments to help the employee onboard and grow their potential in the company.
Linda Scorzo, Hiring Indicators
Test Their Skills With a Small Project
For me, an easy way to ensure that I’m hiring the most qualified employees is to really dig into their resumes and ask tough questions. I want to know their exact role in the accomplishments listed and that they understand the technical skills needed for the job. I also like to test candidates with a small project (which I recommend you pay them for their work) and ask them to walk me through their process in creating and executing the project.
Katy Smithy, Smallwave Marketing
Don’t Be Afraid to Press for the Specifics
First, recognize the hiring manager’s needs vs the wishlist of wants. Knowing what experience is most desired, and at what level, can help the recruiter to hone in on candidates with the most important skills or qualifications for success on the job. Validate the resume information in your interviews, even if you need to press a bit for more specifics, and don’t skip the due diligence steps such as reference checks. Those steps will help to ensure that you are hiring very qualified employees.
Colleen McManus, Senior HR Executive and Consultant
Leverage LinkedIn Quizzes
We’ve recently started leveraging some of LinkedIn’s promoted job posts. They help pre-qualify candidates by including qualifying questions as well as self-assessment quizzes for chosen skills and expertise areas. We set quick questions bases on the job role such as: – How many years experience do you have working with _______ programming language? – Do you have certifications in _____ ? – Would you require sponsorship or help to acquire a working visa? (Y/N) This saves us time in sorting out which candidates to respond to first by determining who is most qualified for the specific role. The self-assessment quizzes from LinkedIn aren’t perfect but also help go a bit deeper into actual skill levels in a given area without committing time to a lengthy interview process.
Colton De Vos, Resolute TS
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