Have you considered the position descriptions you write and the advertisements you make for finding the best candidates? Are you in search of great candidates or great employees…the best hire?
Candidates must meet a certain level of expectation to get through the recruitment process that human resources and independent recruiters set as a multi-level screening exercise. They are being compared to a position description that fails to capture the essence of a great hire, but rather is used to disqualify those who do not meet a standard.
The first screen is typically a “first impression” screen. Those recruiting are looking for confidence, attitude, approachability, energy, and sometimes when done face-to-face, appearance factors into the screening.
The second level of screening is done by phone or onsite interview and looks for issues of fit related to location preferences, compensation levels, title and areas of interest for future work.
Finally, the recruitment process looks for past details on skills, experience, academics and training, and predictors for behaviors based on past results.
Those making it through all these exercises intended to eliminate poor fit candidates will typically enter the interview or second round interview process.
While those screens are effective at eliminating poor-fit candidates, those screens typically are not searching for those things that make a candidate a great hire! In fact, the items used to screen rarely are predictive of the factors that would identify a great hire.
Great hires achieve results, exceed expectations regularly, are responsible, do not make excuses and are typically problem-solvers for their employers and the teams they work within. The great hires collaborate, coach and are easy to coach, mentor and can be mentored, can be led and act as leaders, and just fit well within the culture.
Do your position descriptions do anything to look for these attributes or are they just a list of qualifiers? If you are an independent recruiter, are you cutting and pasting HR’s document or are you exercising leadership by making it about finding a great hire? If your recruitment process is underperforming, it is costing you time, money and potentially great fit hires.
If you have figured out options for finding the best candidates, I would like to hear your story below…