Finding a Candidate Should NOT be Costly

Finding a Candidate Should NOT be Costly

Finding the perfect candidate for a position is a costly process. While it is worth the time and money spepostheader-finding-the-right-candidatent if you do find the right person, hiring the wrong person can cost businesses around two-and-a-half times the yearly salary of the employee in question.

To avoid this, here are three tips we recommend to help you find the right person for the job:

Skills assessments

After the initial interview, it is important to assess the preferred candidate on the skills required for the position. There are a range of skills assessments that you can ask your candidate to complete to check that their skills are up to par and consistent with the skills listed on their resume. One of the most common today is a computer literacy assessment, measuring a worker’s competency on programs such as the Microsoft Office Suite. Skill assessments are also available to measure accounting awareness and skills, knowledge of particular software programs and typing speed and accuracy. Finally, there are a range of behavioral assessments to gauge a candidate’s emotional intelligence and personality traits.

These skill assessments should not be the end-all for your favorite candidate but merely a factor to consider in the big picture of how they will fit in your company. If you find that your preferred candidate’s skills in a particular area are not at the level ideal for the position, but they fit in other areas and you still want to get them into the business, you now know that you will need to spend some time with them refining that skill(s), rather than being surprised later.

Reference checking

Many employers do not see the value in reference checking because they believe that if a candidate has this person listed on their resume, they do so for good reason: in confidence that that employer will not give poor feedback. Nevertheless, reference checking is a good way for employers to gain an insight into their preferred candidate as a worker and also to discover areas in which the candidate may have needed improvement. If asked, past employers are more likely to touch on a candidate’s area of weakness when they have given a generally positive reference. Bear in mind that permission from the candidate to contact references should be obtained, and these references should be people that the candidate directly reported to in their most recent role.

Police checking

Police checking is not something that is required for every role but is getting more and more common in every industry. If you know that there are restrictions on working in your particular industry with a criminal history or the employee will have access to sensitive or financial information, conducting a police check on your candidate is imperative. Finding out later that the person you’ve hired has a criminal record and is no longer allowed to perform their role will result in a lot of wasted time and money, as well as disappointment on the part of the candidate and a potential compromise to your business. Some areas that require candidates to have a clean criminal record include teaching, childcare, law and correction, health, government roles, managerial positions, finance and public passenger services. (Keep in mind that there are employment laws that must be considered and adhered to, in this area.)

Hiring the wrong person for the job can result in a huge amount of your business’s money and resources going to waste. Taking the extra time to follow these three steps and fully vet the candidate means that you can be confident you’ve hired the best suited professional for your role.

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