When you interview a potential employee, there qualities you look out for so that you can make the right choices. However, it is possible to make mistakes during the process. In this article I will share with your five tips on how to avoid making mistakes when hiring a new staff.
1. You already have your list of qualities you desire in your employees, make sure your follow this list. Some candidates may have excellent paper qualifications and even well written curriculum vitae, this should not take the place of all other qualities you have on your list. Have it at the back of your mind that having good papers is not equivalent to suitability for the job. Consider a structured assessment test to see if their skills meet your expectations.
2. Apart from the information supplied to your by the candidate, you may wish to conduct a complete background check on the candidate to acquire more information about him. This could help uncover any possible problems that may occur in the future. You should also ask for at least two guarantors to stand surety for the candidate. The letter to the guarantors should enlighten them on the implication of standing sureties and what action you may take is anything goes wrong.
3. Business owners most times interview candidates alone. There is nothing wrong with this but when you get an additional person to join you during the interview; you get a second opinion on the candidate. The other persons may observe some things you were not able to see. The additional persons could even be one or more of your employees. .
4. Each business should has its culture; a set of beliefs and practices. Try to think about whether the applicant is a good fit for your business culture. If they don’t fit in with the rest of the team they could disrupt office harmony. This is critical so that you do not bring a person who will be responsible for problems in your business.
5. There is always an inner voice that speaks to us whenever we are about to make any decisions. It is called gut feeling or intuition. I don’t know how it works but it is always correct. My advice is when it comes to hiring a new staff you should trust your gut feeling. If your intuition tells you that a person does not fit into your business, you may want to listen to your intuition.
6. Sometimes candidates are recommended to us by friends or family members. In such situation we tend to lower or guard and standard. It is not a helpful practice when hiring. Do not allow sentiments to cloud your judgement. Make all candidates go through your business standard procedure for employment. If a candidate does not meet the set standard, you must reject that candidate otherwise you may face the consequence of lowering your standard.