Hiring good people can be difficult, time-consuming and costly. Understanding the financial and other costs associated with an inefficient hiring practice will lead you to recognize the reasons to spend time and effort on this vital growth subject.
Hiring the wrong person can be a financial disaster.
Costs are typically 150% of yearly salary
Management Headaches
The core of a successful hiring practice is not the actual interview but in the initial phone conversation with a prospective employee. Most candidates prepare for the sit-down interview. They study your website and understand your agency’s products and concentration. They may even have their practiced “script” ready to use to answer the potential, and likely predictable, interview questions. However, many candidates are not ready for a phone interview and do not recognize the importance of this piece of the screening process. As it is more casual and less intimidating than a sit-down interview, you are likely to discover something that you would not find in a ‘practiced’ interview and it is an optimal time to test active listening skills which is key to a productive employee. Remember that most of your clients will be speaking with this prospective employee on the phone so their listening and response skills are paramount to good client relations.
It is important to remember that you are not interviewing to hire at this point. This time is used to qualify candidates for the next step in your hiring practice without the additional costs and associated wasted time of a bad in-office interview.
To begin with, make sure that you prepare the segmentation and questions for the phone interview. Start by introducing yourself, telling them a bit about the agency and your intent for a specific candidate. Set the tone and more importantly, the specific agenda for the interview. Let them know upfront how much time you are devoting to this conversation. How a candidate adheres to the agenda and the pace of a phone interview is very telling and can be much different from a face-to-face conversation where the candidate can adjust responses and approach based on your body language.
Be sure to give the candidate the opportunity to acknowledge the agenda and any overt deviation on their part may be a clear sign that this candidate is not for you.
Wrap up the interview with a clear plan of action by either thanking them for their time or giving them the instructions for the next phase in your interview process. The follow up should always be on the candidate not on the agency. Placing the responsibility for follow up on the candidate is the next step of the hiring assessment. The follow up, or lack of follow up, is a clear measurement of the hirable potential of your next ideal employee.
Written on October 4, 2017 by Peggy Corbett