4 Steps to Hiring New Employees

          Guest post from Kelly Stanton (bio is at the end):
Being a hiring manager comes with great responsibility. You won’t hear much about it when you make good hires, people just enjoy having another good team member. But boy howdy will you hear about it  if you make a bad hire! Generally you won’t be alone in those decisions, even at my 18 person company, at least 3 of the management team interviews a candidate, but you’re still somewhat responsible for bringing in good quality candidates. 
          I've been involved in the hiring process for several organizations through the course of my career, and am currently heavily responsible for bringing in candidates at my small consulting firm. Here are some tips from my trial by fire experience.  One would think in this economy with millions of unemployed out there, hiring would be easy. Boy has that not been the case!

1)  Have clearly defined job descriptions and skill sets required. Prioritize those skill sets!

I recently had the experience of trying to hire another field service technician for my
organization. I pulled an old job description and sent it to my colleague, to whom this position reports. He replied that it looked fine, so I posted it. I began filtering resumes with experience that matched the technical details of the position, and had what I felt were some very good candidates. 
          He would phone screen, and none of them were passing. I finally pushed him one day after about a month of this on why none of these seemingly qualified people were meeting his needs. He replied “I need someone who has actually done field service work, not just done calibration for one organization as a direct employee. They don’t have the customer
service experience to keep our customers happy.” Ohhh…interesting. That was listed on the
job description down near the bottom in a “nice to have” sort of way. It wasn’t an actual
requirement, nor was it communicated that it was actually more important than technical
experience.

2) Be willing to train some, or be willing to wait a long time on the perfect candidate.

It happens. Occasionally the perfect fit to your team falls into your lap, or someone you trust knows someone who might be open to considering your position. It happens. But let’s face reality, most of the time, you’re going to have to pick and choose what is most critical about the position and look for just those traits, knowing that you’ll have to train the rest. (see above about prioritize!). 
          Unless you’re willing to up the game by increasing salary, paying a recruiter tens of thousands, or waiting several long months with an open position, the perfect candidate who has every skill you’re looking for and is the perfect fit to your team isn't going to just fall into your lap. If you’re a small organization, the waiting game is painful! You've decided you need the help, and in a small company that usually comes well after you’re overwhelmed with work and are ready to staff up a bit. If you’re in a large organization, you have to weigh the risks of burning out your very good team members left behind by the vacancy as they pick up the slack. Either of these scenarios is tough on existing team retention.

3) Realize that hiring is going to take a good chunk of your time.

There are literally millions of unemployed people out there. There are also thousands of those who are currently employed and perhaps unhappy where they are and want to make a change. Be prepared to get bombarded with emails, especially if you post on sites like CraigsList. Set up a generic email address like jobs@yourcompany.com to catch all the fray. Set aside time each day to filter applicants, and keep track of the ones you’d like to contact. Come up with a system that works for you to filter those candidates. 
          In my world (FDA and ISO regulated industries), attention to detail is critical. So one of my very first checks is just that, are there type-o’s and obvious grammatical errors in their cover letter or resume? Written communication is still very important even in this electronic age. Can they write a cover letter/email and not sound like a 3rd grader? Harsh? Perhaps. But remember, we are a consulting firm. We can’t have technicians dealing with customers and sounding like they barely made it through high school English. I’m amazed at how often someone tells me in their description of themselves that they have great attention to detail, and yet I find several misspellings on their resume! 

"Can they write a cover letter/email and not sound like a 3rd grader?  Harsh?  Perhaps."

          My second filter criteria is to scan the cover letter and resume for keywords/phrases that tell me they actually read my posted job description. I will even consider a candidate who comes right out and says something like “while I do not have specific experience with a Siebel database, I am familiar with other databases such as…” This tells me they understand I need someone who can find their way around a database, and that they are willing to learn.
          My third filter can be in the initial letter from them or the phone screen: “Have you visited our website?” This speaks volumes to whether they are just blasting their resume out there trying to get lucky, or are genuinely interested in joining your organization. This may not be so important to an organization like McDonald's, but in our industry it’s pretty important. Motivated individuals will take the time to understand what you do, and will have some intelligent questions prepared to ask you during the interview process.

4) Finally you get to the face to face interview.

If you’ve followed the tips up until now, face to face should be pretty easy. You already know from this person’s resume and preliminary interactions they are qualified for the job. The face to face interview should be more about determining how this person will fit the team.
          The other big thing I look for in an interview is actual experience – tell me about a time when you were at ABC company and XYZ scenario happened. How did you handle it? I find these interactions tell the rest of the story. Did they actually do the work on their resume? Or are they just padding with catch phrases that talk the talk because they read a book, but don’t necessarily translate into real experience? Do they have problem solving skills? Do they take initiative? All these traits will come out in the stories they tell. You’ll also get a good idea about personality and professionalism. Are they bitter and bad mouthing their last boss? Are they a constant victim, or are they positive and view challenges as learning opportunities?

All in all, hiring is one of the most difficult, yet most critical activities that go on in a business.  A new hire can make or break a team, and it’s up to you as the hiring manager to be  organized in your approach and make the best decisions you can for your organization. No pressure of course.

About the writer:  Kelly (Brown) Stanton is the Director of Validation Services at Anacor Compliance, a Pharmaceuticals company in the Greater Denver Area.  She provides validation solutions to customers across the US and Canada in the areas of Equipment, Facility, Laboratory, and Analytical Instrumentation.