Hiring Process

The employee hiring process is critical to your business success. Most people contend that their employees are their most important asset. If this is true, then deciding who to hire is one of the most important decisions you make.

Like your other key business processes, employee hiring needs to be approached in an organized, logical manner. Applying a proven selection process is going to get the best results.

Too often hiring is done in a rushed or even panic mode. It is very easy to panic when a good employee quits or some critical business need isn't getting satisfied. When you need a new employee, you need them now.

As a result, it is easy to throw too much money at the problem and rush through without a plan.

It doesn't have to be this way!

A proven hiring plan includes each of the following components:

• Strategy
• Budget
• Proven Selection System
• Documentation/Measuring System

Hiring Strategy

Any good hiring process begins with a strategy. Think of the hiring strategy as your mission statement for all your hiring efforts. In addition to your philosophy, your hiring strategy includes timing issues. How you approach replacement jobs (immediate need) versus additional jobs (more lead time) varies.

Resource allocation is included in your strategy. Who is going to do the actual recruiting? Will you use outside professional services? Who on your staff is accountable for the results?

Your strategy should take into consideration compensation issues. How you pay has a profound impact on hiring. The total package including benefits can dictate your course of action and how quickly you can fill certain positions.

Hiring Budget

Hiring new employees is not free. There are monetary costs. There are time costs. And there are resource costs. A big mistake many organizations make is to not budget for hiring.

Your first step is to start tracking all expenditures. Put line items for recruiting and employment related activities into your chart of accounts. Also put a hiring section into your operating budget.

Plan for the cost of ads, recruiters and travel expense if any. Plan for the time you and your managers will spend on the interview process.  See the article on recruiting metrics for a complete discussion of tracking recruiting expenditures.

Proven Selection Process

A proven selection process is a must if you are going to hire good employees. Most managers have never had any type of interview training and have no idea what types of interview questions to ask.  A proven selection process needs to incorporate an interview process and screening techniques including employment testing, resume reading, phone interviews and background checks.

There are many approaches to hiring great employees and you can read a full discussion about the various models in the interview training article.

The bottom line is it is easy to get off track with all the misinformation on this subject. Make sure you adopt a proven model used by the best companies in the world.

Documentation/Measuring System

You need to track hiring efforts and results just like your sales, expenses and other business processes. Earlier we mentioned putting a section into your budget and line items into your chart of accounts. There are three other key metrics you want to track.

Time to fill your position, cost per hire and source of hire are three measures that help improve your efforts over time. For a full discussion of the metrics checkout the employee recruiting metrics article.

In conclusion, a good employee hiring process gives you the best chance of hiring top employees. Without it, hiring mistakes and wasting money are real possibilities.

Related Information:

Interview Process

Reading Resumes

Phone Interviews

Employment Testing

Background Checking