Do You Know How You’re Selecting Candidates? 

An employer has a lot to gain from adding new talent to the staff. A great candidate can bring out massive gains in productivity and teamwork. He or she can also get the most out of work and feel like he or she is a part of something. However, this is not something you will know ahead of time, which can make the employee selection process a little tough to endure. Still, proper preparation can guarantee that you can find a decent candidate to join your staff. The question becomes, what are you doing to make sure you find someone to fill the positions you need?

What are you looking at?

When reading up on potential employees, there are a lot of ways to assess different applications over the course of the candidate search. However, the person will only really matter in the last few miles that take up the interview process, and even then, the interviews only demonstrate the person at his or her best. So personality isn’t necessarily going to be something you know about until the person starts working. In addition, as Monster.com notes, if you think too much about the people beforehand, you may end up getting someone whose skills don’t match what you need. Even the bubbliest personalities are going be meaningless if the people who have them don’t know what they’re supposed to be doing.

So what you should be doing instead? Look at the job description you wrote. What skills do you need most? Why do you need them? Your answers should relate to the kind of work you need done at your company, not the person who will do them. With this in mind, your assessments should entirely reflect the talents that are needed. Are you looking for IT professionals? You need someone with technical know-how. Project managers should be able to plan out situations and organize teams. If your candidates can’t show they can get these basic functions done, you’re going to have some problems hiring the right people.

A grading system

Of course, without proper metrics from which to assess a candidate for the job, you’ll have a hard time moving forward. Some people may have prior history with specific skills, after all, but their experiences may not match what you’re looking for. Legal site FindLaw suggests that you build a criteria sheet for the key components that you need from the job.
These should have measurable grades you can use to confirm what you’re looking for. For example, how many years has this person been working in the field? How much experience does he or she have in one skill?

Mark these particulars with points, adding and deducting based on certain details such as if candidates have advanced knowledge of certain skills, or had only used a skill in another industry. Once you get all the numbers down, add them up and compare each person’s score. Begin culling your candidates based on the top scores, and hopefully you’ll be able to get people who are close to what you’re looking for.

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