Hiring Strategies for 2009

By: Tim de Jardine

The Big Picture

Hiring needs change, big change. The Human Resource industry is often too stagnant for its own good. If you focus on basics like speed, collaboration, and effectiveness your results should increase dramatically.

It’s not about how many candidates you have. All that matters is who is looking right now and how fast and effectively you can make decisions to determine whether you want this person before you hire them as a new employee.

Where are we today?

We use information systems that store resumes from candidates, reference checks, and phone numbers. We capture all candidate in our systems and sometimes even ask them to enter their own information. We have CV’s going back 5 or even 10 years. This becomes redundant.

Hiring needs to change, and I believe that the systems are the first step to driving the change. I have studied the hiring industry and spoken to recruiters and candidates. One thing is clear: all systems have to operate with speed.

But is speed everything? What about quality of decision?

As you went into that last interview with a candidate were you on exactly the same page as your colleague who interviewed the candidate yesterday? Did you even know how their interview went? What about the person who screened their CV? What was their opinion?

I have personally seen situations where companies and managers had absolutely no idea what they wanted. Often it’s like leaving success frequency down to pure chance. There simply was no teamwork, leaving hiring to chance.

Currently many employers often delegate responsibility of hiring to a single person. That single person has the weight of expectations on their shoulders to find a dynamite candidate. The problem with this approach is that it rarely works. Rarely does a perfect candidate come through the door and rarely will you find them.

This is because you are relying on one person rather than a group of people, which is like having all your eggs in one basket. Often the person responsible for hiring has other commitments and if these other commitments take priority then you will have times where no one is managing your recruiting. Hiring should be a conversation between:

• candidates
• employers
• recruiters
• internal staff
• friends
• referrals
• acquaintances

Why is it then that all current applicant tracking systems have no means to build or track a conversation? You cannot have a conversation with a CV, key words, skill list, or a database. You cannot have a worthwhile conversation with one person doing the hiring. You are simply spread too thin.

Each conversation, whether it is scoping, interviewing, or just general discussion adds to the effectiveness of hiring new employees. You gain different perspectives and are able to view the candidate from new angles. The more input you receive the better.

Strategies for 2009

What makes a great candidate? We all have our own views around this issue. It is almost universal that a recruitment agent tries to customize their candidate to fit the perceived match of a hiring manager or job description. But what about your team? Does your team’s view count? New employees will be working with the team more than the hiring manager. If you do not get your team involved in the hiring process/activity, then you are simply hiring for yourself.

Allow teams to conduct or attend interviews

This means they will be more likely to favor a new employee if they had partake in the hiring process. This will also increase buy-in to the hiring process.

Gain honest feedback from team members about a particular candidate

Anonymous, no-strings-attached feedback can do wonders. With no pressure, your employees are more likely to say what they really think instead of what you want to hear.

Treat referrals like gold

Referrals should not be something that happens once a year, but something that is actively sought by all employees. By using a bounty/reward system to encourage referrals you will motivate your team to become active recruiters.

Set expectations

If candidates, recruiters, and your team don’t know what is expected of them, neither will you. Make a plan. Establish mutual criteria or a measurement point from which you will evaluate a candidate. This could be as simple as a numbered list of qualities and a rating scale beside them.

Use a system

The system has to be formalized and reliable. Make sure that everyone knows the rules, and everyone adheres to the processes that you have put in place.

Stick to your decisions

There is nothing worse than a hiring manager flip-flopping on decisions about candidates. It sends a bad message to the candidate and everyone else that may be involved.

Measure Recruitment Agencies and Third Parties

There are so many agencies around, so it’s important to keep track of who delivered on what they promised. Where are your best hires coming from?

Measure the worth of your agencies. Break this down by:

• Resources allocated to the job
• Candidates per week expected from the agent
• Timeframes to complete work
• Responsiveness of the agency

Use these measurements to keep the best agencies and drop the poor ones. This is a good way to determine whether you actually need to use an external recruiter.

Quality of Hire
How do we measure quality? One method is to define criteria for each job. Ask yourself, what are the required qualities in this particular job?”

Simplify it. Take some requirements and go through in your mind and number them. Communicate what’s on your mind and distribute it so everyone can see and is on the same page. For example, a sales executive job may look like:

1. 5 years experience in the field
2. Able to cold call
3. Knows TAS or has attended TAS training
4. Worked with Government and Enterprise
5. Managed a portfolio of over $2 million dollars

With clearly outlined criteria for the assessment it will ensure you and your team and everyone else involved are on the same path of thinking when accessing candidates.

Conclusion

With a focus on speed, communication, and collaboration you can bring your hiring strategy into 2009 and focus on results over number of candidates/CVs in your talent silo.

Tim de Jardine is a technology entrepreneur with a passion for the web. As long as he can remember Tim has been fascinated by industry, ideas and big pictures. Currently Tim is the CEO and Co-Founder of Hirewall, a web-based hiring system for SMB's that allows employers to secure candidates before their competitors. Tim is also a Co-Founder of TribeHQ, a social network that focuses on employment verticals to be released Jan-09. Check out Tim's blog at www.timdejardine.com