Hiring wrongly is like putting a square peg in a round whole. Just like a bad flat tire will leave you in the middle of a highway. The tail end result is a waste, if not loss of a large pool of resources, including but not limited to material, human as well as financial.
The problem of inappropriate hiring cannot be over-emphasized.
Sharing insights on “Strategic ways to hire the right fit for the job” in a recent webinar with Dr. Jeff Bassey, Executive Director of the HR Certification Center, he underscored that a bad hire can cause a good business strategy to fail.
Here are 5 key things he highlighted that attributes to companies hiring the wrong fit for the job.
- Lack of clear strategy and direction
As an interviewer, there is always the need to have a plan of action designed to ask the candidate, in order to enquire whether he or she has the requirements to meet the company’s standards. Thus, meeting the long term goals of the company. There should be advance preparation towards the interview. This preparation includes but is not limited to active listening to answers, minimizing distractions as well as discussing the company or organization.
- Lack of effective selection criteria
Selection criteria inform the potential applicant about the yardstick by which he or she will be measured. The criteria includes a clear description of what the employer actually wants in the job seeker. This includes qualifications and experiences. When the criteria for selecting a job seeker is not clear, the employer ends up attracting, and in some cases employing the wrong candidate. It is important that the selection criteria is an effective one which includes the required qualifications for effective job performance.
- Lack of proper onboarding
Over one-third of companies do not have a structured onboarding process. Onboarding should not be only orientation focused but should have the spectacle of employees long term performance. Poor onboarding can cost a company 100-300% of employee salary in total. This leads largely to employee turnover. Lack of proper onboarding can lead to lower employee morale, lower levels of employee engagements among other negative impacts of not having a thorough onboarding program.
- Turkeys disguised as eagles
Some bad applicants are able to perform brilliantly during interviews. Therefore, other things like, the reporting time, having the required documents, having prepared answers for the potential questions, whether they are organized, and whether their core values align with the company’s culture are very crucial things that should be looked out for. Most often than not, some poor employees have good interviewing skills. It is therefore important that clarity with expected standards are stated. This will help do away with anything that will seemingly play on the intelligence of the interviewer, and prevent anything that is not from appearing as though it were.
- Unqualified Interviewers
There is a need for interviewers to acquire some traits which are birthed out of training before they recruit employees. An untrained interviewer, is actually cost to the company. The lack of structured interview questions that will best fit the job’s descriptions interviewed for, could bring cost to the company. Interviews should not be a trial and error but should be geared towards achieving the aim for the interview, thus getting the best fit for the job.
Interviewer preparation tips:
- Put together clear questions for the interview.
- Put the questions to thought.
- Review candidate information.
- Decide on a structure.
In deciding the structure, the interviewer is expected to:
- Use the job descriptions.
- Link core skills with basic duties.
- Create questions that identify candidates’ sustainability for the role.
Every organization actually has hopes of existing into the unforeseeable future. It is therefore important that the employee who happens to be a stakeholder is brought into the organization with the mindset of adding up to achieve longevity. The duty for this falls on the interviewer who is a decider with regards to who comes and stays, to do due diligence to achieve the corporate goal.
Did you miss the webinar?
