Do Your Managers Know How to Hire?

September 15th, 2011 by Skywalk Group Categories: Employee Development, Employee Retention, Human Resources Management, Recruiting, Skywalk Group, Staffing and Employment, Supervisory Training

Differentiating the “wanna-bes” from the “will-bes”

Hiring is easy, right?  The position gets advertised, people apply, the hiring manager interviews, and the best candidate gets the offer.  Easy, right?  Not so fast.  Identifying the right talent who posses the skills necessary to complement a team isn’t quite that easy.  Too often companies and their managers treat it like it’s easy, only to ask themselves months later why the best candidate isn’t performing.

While there are many variables impacting a candidate’s success in a new role, as the book “I Quit, But Forgot to Tell You,” points out, you can frequently blame the hiring process.  According to a study of 800 managers:

• 72% of management has failed to acquire interviewing, hiring, and profiling skills
• Less than one-third of these manager’s companies use hiring tools, position competencies, job profiles, behaviors and beliefs or selling/service assessments.

Lack of Training

Interviewing is commonly assumed to be skill miraculously perfected the instant it is first required.  Just go in there and ask questions; it’ll be obvious who’s the right person.  I beg to differ.  Interviewing is a skill honed with training, practice and the right assessment tools to differentiate the “wanna-bes” from the “will-bes.” Hiring Winning Talent is an affordable e-learning program but it can also be offered in a classroom setting in your organization.

The Right Tools

Creating a strong team means identifying what skills and behaviors that need to be seen from each position on the team.   Take the NFL draft.  While most teams wouldn’t mind the first pick quarterback, sometimes the player who will strengthen that weak offensive line is the guy drafted in the 2^nd round.  If haven’t identified your needs ahead of time, you’ll end up with three quarterbacks and a weak center that can’t protect any one of those quarterbacks.

The same concept applies to business.  Tools like position competencies, job profiles and the like, help hiring managers define the skills and behaviors needed to fit the culture and strengthen the team.  Just taking time to think about position competencies is one step closer to hiring a strong, talented team.

If a strong, talented team isn’t what you’re after, then sure, recruiting is easy.

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