Avoid making expensive mistakes: Your recruitment needs test drives

Illustration

A prospective employee will cost you as much as a new car in just one year, when we sum up his or her salary and benefits. Buying a car is a big expenditure – that's why we always give it a test drive. In a similar way, you can boost your recruitment success, claims the smartblogs.com website.

Identify the critical skill sets for the position

You need to know what the key performance factors for the job are. What will differentiate successful people in that role from unsuccessful ones? Make a list, check it out with your team and be sure you all agree on the type of person you are trying to find.

Good fit

Problems of fit stem from issues of style rather than issues connected to technical knowledge. It is about the candidate's behavioral style or attitude, and of his future colleagues. There are profile tools that enable you to identify what the job calls for. It also helps you to compare the profiles of candidates with the style that is needed.

Test drive: Create real live job situations

See how they do their tasks. Learn how they approach and solve problems before you hire them. There are confidentiality concerns, so establish an assessment center or test track. It can be an hour or even a half day. It pays off in a huge way. Debrief with the candidates. Managers often ignore telltale signs of misfit because they are justifying the hiring decision. They need to think they made a great choice. This is cognitive dissonance at work.

Get owner’s manual for each applicant

What do they need in order to do their job most effectively? What do they need to achieve their highest performance? Will they match the rest of the team? Check out the maintenance requirements before you buy them.

-jk-

Article source SmartBlogs.com - network of professional blogs
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