Right and wrong hires – and how to avoid the latter

We are living and working in interesting times. The war for talent and high expectations from the new generation have caused employee retention levels to drop. Recent research suggests up to half of your employees could possibly be applying for new jobs, or passively thinking about switching careers.

While it’s important to have employee retention strategies to address this issue, employers should also implement strategies to reduce the hiring of ‘bad fit’ employees. The effect of a single bad hire could have far reaching consequences, including negative impact to teamwork and engagement, loss of productivity, reduced staff morale and opportunity costs to your organisation.

Although there are many factors that motivate today’s candidates, the most relevant are also often the hardest for employers to assess. Jobseekers aren’t only just looking for more pay – many also want interesting jobs with career growth opportunities, strong leaders they can respect and a culture that makes them happy.

Develop Targeted Attraction Strategies and Talent Pools

With candidates shifting roles to the driver’s seat and becoming choosier than before, it is critical that you have a tangible corporate culture. This will not only present your company as an ideal place to work, but also attract suitable talent that fits your company’s personality and expectations.

Strategies to communicate an authentic Employee Value Proposition should be integrated into your recruitment process. Career development opportunities and salary packages should be communicated clearly and your corporate culture and values should be articulated in your messages to candidates. An effective EVP will not only attract candidates today, but also appeal to passive candidates.

Job descriptions should be expanded beyond the standard technical requirements and responsibilities. Including realistic job previews or sample ‘Day in the Life’ profiles, will allow unsuitable candidates to ‘self screen’ out of the selection process while ‘culturally’ preparing potential hires for the role at hand.

Using innovative digital sourcing strategies to help find and engage with passive candidates can help you build targeted talent pools and gather market intelligence and candidate data. New media has brought a new dimension to recruiting, creating a wealth of opportunities for identifying new talent pipelines.

Recruit for High Performance rather than Experience

Many employers measure candidate suitability based on their technical skills, capabilities and experience as these are the easiest to gauge. Few hiring managers are equipped with the know how to measure cultural fit – the key indicator that separates low performance workers from productive high performers.

A recent Hudson study has shown that despite 91 percent of employers agreeing that cultural fit assessment has an overall effect on the performance of hires, only 6 percent of employers actually use tools to factor cultural fit in their hiring process.

Where possible, hiring managers should be trained to use motivational based questions in interviews to gauge candidate’s expectations, as well as incorporate properly structured behavioral tests designed to identify how the candidate will fit in their assigned roles. By implementing robust science-based selection methods in your interview process, you will eliminate hiring based on gut feel, and take the risk out of recruiting.

Alternatively, you can also engage experts to develop your talent pipeline and save your organisation time and critical HR resources. By increasing your organisation’s ability to attract top talent and identifying those with the right fit for your organisation, you will be well positioned to find and hire the right people.