Friday’s unemployment figure of 4.4% was the lowest it has been since 2007. That means there will be fewer people out there looking for jobs. If you are looking to hire, it behooves you to be really clear on your job description. It also suggests that you should be evaluating prospects on their fit for your job.

How do you do that? in talking with successful companies that do a good job drawing candidates, i hear a lot of best practices. Here are the top 5:

  1. The company lives their values and they communicate their values such that good fits want to work for them and bad fits know it and self-select out. They describe what those values are in every interview.
  2. They test for personality as it relates to the position. For example, a job that requires working alone on tasks that require high detail orientation and accuracy wouldn’t be filled with a big picture, highly social individual. They would put that person in sales.
  3. They pay close attention to everything from how the candidate shows up in the office, how they interact with the receptionist, what questions they ask, and if they send a thank you note for the interview. They look for attitude.
  4. They check references and ask if there is anyone else at the previous company who knew the candidate and talk to them.
  5. They have a panel interview the candidates, and ask them all the same or similar questions and record the answers, scoring in each area that is important for success on the job.

If you are not doing all of these things, here are some resources from Vistage speakers to help you improve:

www.Impacthiringsolutions.com for job descriptions and hiring templates

http://www.lighthouseconsulting.com for In-Depth Work Style Personality Testing
and Assessment for the C level candidate and the whole team

http://www.predictiveindex.com for everyone else

Do what it takes to improve your selection process and make your life a whole lot easier. Why wouldn’t you want that?

 

 

image courtesy of http://www.crunchyfriday.com/