Successful businesses weather storms of uncertainty and innovate through adversity with positivism, belief, resourcefulness and resilience.
Choosing a new member of staff, especially for ambitious SMEs, is exciting and daunting at the same time. Done badly it is not only costly, but stressful too.
Once a decision has been made to hire new members of staff, the business needs to be clear on what these new recruits have to do and be able to do – what work needs to be done?
In our unpredictable world, with contexts and demands evolving rapidly, it is crucial to have a clear idea of the qualities and strengths someone new needs.
And then, what about making a judgement about the extent to which candidate X or Y possesses these crucial strengths?
He or she may have made a great impression at interview, but what does this really say about the reliability of our prediction of their success in the job?
How much can you afford to rely on your gut instinct? And will they like it here – and stay?
In the interview, the candidate seemed so confident, a go-getter, and likeable – and there were ‘thumbs up’ from the references and the recruiters.
Apart from efficient recruitment and reliable, predictive selection, the candidate experience is crucial: the reputation of the company in the eyes of the person who is given the job and the reputation with those who were less successful.
A business might decide that the new person or new senior internally-promoted manager needs to be flexible and strong at managing people challenges – whilst having ‘commercial acumen’ and strategic insight to boot.
Finding out what candidates’ drivers and strengths are is important. Basing one’s judgement and hiring decisions only on a set of job interviews is unlikely to give information that is reliable enough.
We are susceptible to unconscious bias as interviewers: unwanted factors influence the quality of our judgements on which we base our hiring decisions. Relying on ‘experience and intuition’ does not suffice.
Investing in this selection process not only improves the hiring decision and the quality and ‘fit’ of people, but also is an indicator of the ambition and reputation of the business – for the long haul.
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