Improving Candidate Quality
Kevin Wheeler
Here are four practical things you can do right now to help reduce the number of poor-quality hires that you make.
NUMBER 1: ESTABLISH A DEFINITION OF QUALITY AND USE IT TO SELECT PEOPLE
Most organizations do not have any definition of a "quality employee," nor do they even have a performance management system that is anything better than a popularity contest. While I could write a long column on the pros and cons of performance management philosophies, suffice it to say that before any performance can be assessed, the organization has to have a clear idea of what good or exceptional performance looks like. It needs to have longitudinal studies of its best performers so that a pattern of actions, competencies, and skills can be established that are linked to success. Then these characteristics can be used to select new people.
This is the time to unravel the characteristics of the good performers, and develop profiles by function of top performers' skills and competencies.
There are a host of companies that offer selection tools and services, many of which can be integrated with your applicant/talent management system. I suggest you take a look at Charles Handler's excellent site, Rocket-Hire (http://www.rocket-hire.com/). His site contains tons of information on screening and assessment and provides a guide to the many tools available. Charles is also an excellent consultant in this field.
But, while these tools are essential for determining candidate quality, there's still the need for the creative and unorthodox, from time to time, to keep the creative juices flowing and to unseat the status quo that can be damaging to new ideas and growth. What you should be striving for is not perfection, but improvement and the setting of some minimum selection criteria.
NUMBER 2: EDUCATE HIRING MANAGERS
Very few hiring managers know much about selection or about what it takes to assess a candidate. Even though you may have put all the managers through some sort of interview training, I'm sure they have forgotten most of it and have used less. Most of us are not disciplined, nor can we expect the typical manager to become expert with these techniques. One area where recruiters can add value is to pre-screen and evaluate candidates against criteria that are objective and job-related. Managers can help you determine what those criteria are, and they should be well aware of the consequences of using the criteria. Using them might mean that their best candidate technically is a poor candidate when it comes to attitude or fit and should not be hired.
You can hold briefing sessions, spend time one-on-one with managers, hire a consultant to work with them, or simply gather and use case studies and examples from your own organization to help managers understand how important it is to select people with the right skills and the right organizational fit and attitude.
NUMBER 3: INVESTIGATE AND EXPERIMENT WITH NEW TOOLS FOR SCREENING AND SELECTION
It is startlingly obvious that very few firms, before investing a large amount of time in interviews, are taking advantage of the many online tools that are emerging to help screen candidates. By using the Internet and your corporate website, you can ask candidates to engage in a dialogue and mutual assessment process. While you are looking at their skills and fit, they can be looking at your organization and can make decisions about whether or not they like what they see. Many people I have spoken with have seen one side of an organization while interviewing, and another less attractive one after they are hired. Let candidates email other employees for information about the company and work/life.
Recently, blogs have become popular with candidates because they bring authenticity and reality about the organization. And, by simply adding job previews and marketing-oriented job descriptions, you can improve the kinds of candidates who apply.
NUMBER 4: TEACH YOURSELF
Take time to gain a new skill, read a book or two on selection or assessment, take a seminar on the topic, or at least have some good conversations with vendors or other recruiters about what they are doing.
Spend a few hours looking at other organizations' recruiting websites and noting what you like and don't like. Try applying for a job and see what you think about the quality of the process.
Recruiters who set aside a period of time every day or week for improving themselves always end up in better jobs and attract better candidates.
Organizations that are using the selection tools that are now available, combined with websites that are written to attract and target the right candidate, are finding that candidate quality has improved. Interviewing is not enough, takes too much time, and yields poor results when measured against objective criteria. It just won't do it anymore.
Articles
Finding Candidates
- 10 Reasons to Hire Vets
- Hire Older Workers
- Improving Candidate Quality
- Sourcing 101
- Sourcing Candidates Well
- Tips for Building Employment-Related Websites
- U.S. Employ of People with Disabilities: Free Workshops
- Virtual College Recruiting
Interviewing Basics
- 10 Commandments of Recruiting
- 5 Keys to Successful Hiring
- 7 Tips for Successful Phone Interviews
- Behavioral Interviewing Basics
- Contrary Evidence Questions
- Interview Questions: Do's and Don'ts
- Interviewing Opening and Closing Remarks
- Interviews: Common Weaknesses
- Mistakes Amateur Interviewers Make
- Phone Screen Interview Mistakes
- Probing Techniques Explained
- Screening Interviewing: Top 10 Red Flags
- Strengthen the Validity of Your Interviews
- Telephone Interviews: Basics
- Ten Bad Listening Habits of Interviewers
- Types of Interviews
- Typical Probes and Follow up Questions
- What Do Interviewers Need to Know to be Effective?
Interviewing Best Practices
- 7 Keys to Effective Selection Interviews
- A Closer Look at Behavior-Based Interviewing
- Advantages / Disadvantages of Interviewing
- Applying Core Competencies to Selection Interviews
- Are You Really a Behavior-Based Interviewer?
- Assessing Speaking and Listening Skills
- Best Practices in Interviewing Candidates
- Deadly Interview Mistakes
- Death by Interview
- Ensure Hiring Success in Every Situation
- Executive Assessment Should Be Mandatory
- Generational Interviewing
- Hiring Interview + Strategic Applicant Management
- Hold Evening and Off-Time Interviews
- How to Interview a Top Performer
- Improve your Interviewing Techniques
- Interview Questions to Assess Soft Skills
- Interviewing for Ethics
- Interviewing Millennials
- Interviewing: Business or Psychology
- Metrics Interview
- Peeling Back the Onion
- The Positives of Panel Interviews
- Time for Candidate Advocacy?
- Tips for Conducting Successful Interviews
- Two Critical Interviewing Questions
Laws & Documentation
- Applicant Reference Release
- At Will Employment Release
- Avoid Negligent Hiring Mistakes
- Employee Referral Program Metrics
- Fair Labor Standards Act Information
- Four Interview Questions Never to Ask
- Giving Employee References
- Hiring Compliance Guidelines
- Hiring for Small Business
- Interviewing People with Disabilities
- Job Denial Letter
- Legal Issues in Interviewing
- Minimize Employment Risks: Document
- SAMPLE Employment Policy
- SAMPLE Letter: Educational Records Check
- SAMPLE Letter: Reference Check
- Ten Safe Hiring Tools
- What is Negligent Hiring
Line Manager / Recruiting Partnership
- Defending Candidates to Hiring Managers
- Interlocking Core Competency Interviews
- Internal Application Process
- Making Internships Work for You
- Making the Case for Behavioral Interviewing
- Non-Traditional Merit Pay Alternatives
- OFCCP Definition of an Internet Applicant
- Why Managers Shouldn't Do Most Hiring
- Workforce Planning: Strategic Staffing Strategy
Post-Interview
Pre-Planning & Retention
- Bonus or Incentive?
- Brand-Building on a Budget
- Build a First-Rate Hiring Process
- Closing the Deal
- Compensation Plans: An Overview
- Conducting an Exit Interview
- Good Hiring Starts with a Good Job Profile
- Improve the Quality of the Employment Function
- Interview Process Problems
- Interview the Job Before the Candidates
- Job Description Template-Link Pay to Performance
- Linking Pay to Company Performance
- Selecting and Using Salary Surveys
- Succession Planning
- Succession Planning: Identifying Top Performers
- Using a Pre-Interviewing Questionnaire
- Winning the War for Talent
- Worker Shortage by 2010: Preparation
Reading the Candidate
- Beware of Those Who Boast
- Blind Man's Bluff
- Decision, Decisions: Choosing the Better Applicant
- Detecting Deceit in Interviews
- Little White Lies on Resumes
- Suspend Judgment Until the Interview is Over
Recruiting Basics
- College Recruiting Basics
- College Recruiting Essentials
- Cut Down on Interview No Shows
- Discouraging Low Quality Applicants
- Don't Hold Too Many Interviews
- Job Descriptions: Why are they Important?
- New Strategies for Screening Job Candidates
- Preventing Resume Overload with Questionnaires
- Resume Review Basics
- Test Validation Explained
- The Value of Person-Organization Fit
- Three Companies Cut Turnover with Tests
Recruiting Best Practices
- 25 Telltale Signs of the Wrong Candidate
- 5 Overlooked Ways to Hire Winners
- Asking the Right Recruitment Questions
- Attracting Your Competitor's Employees
- BPR.......for Recruiters!
- Candidate Engagement
- Cloud Recruiting
- Evaluate Your Capture Strategy
- Hiring Best Practices
- How Do You Attract and Retain the Best People?
- How to Attract Applicants to Undesirable Jobs
- How to Attract, Develop and Retain Best People
- How to Find and Keep Valued Employees
- Ignorance and the Human Condition
- Onboarding Success Secrets
- Secrets to Non-Profit Hiring
- Selecting Top Management Talent
- Semi-Active Candidates are Best Bets
- Six Core Selling Principles
- Skills Based Recruiting: When, not How
- Smart Choices: How to Hire the Best
- Strategy for Hiring the Best This Year
- The Uses and Misuses of Personality Tests
- Top 10 Employee Selection Mistakes & Solutions
- Treat Candidates with the Carbon Rule