Central to studies in an advanced business management degree program like Southern Illinois University Edwardsville’s online MBA with a Management Specialization is creating and leading an effective team of employees. Your employees are, after all, your organization’s most important asset, the drivers of your company’s success.
Building a good team starts with hiring the right people for the right positions. Matching a competent worker with a job and company that fits their skill set and values benefits the employee, their team and the company’s bottom line.
What Are the Dangers in Hiring the Wrong Person?
Just as the benefits of hiring the right person for the right job are many, so are the potential harms of mismatching an employee with a job or company as a whole.
At the most basic level, initial hiring and employee turnover can be expensive. According to Glassdoor, the process costs about $4,000 and takes 24 days for each hire, on average. Other factors to consider include the cost of the onboarding process and the ratio of productivity to salary while an employee is being trained.
Hiring the wrong employee for a job can mean further costly training and lost productivity when repositioning that person into a more appropriate role. It can also result in severance pay costs in the case of having to let the employee go. Refilling vacant positions means more hiring and onboarding costs. Plus, an employee who is unmotivated, unhappy or dissatisfied in their job can bring down team morale.
What Are Some Strategies for Ensuring I Hire the Right Person?
Developing and executing a strategic hiring process is necessary for building a high-functioning team of employees and avoiding the costs of turnover. Here are a few hiring strategies that can help companies find the right people for their teams:
- Expand the Interview Process
The traditional interview has its place and should not be overlooked. But taking a creative approach to the interview can help hiring managers learn a good deal more about the job candidate. Get prospective employees out of the interview room and introduce them to the team. Show them around the office. Have them do a working interview.
The point of the interview is to assess a job candidate’s efficacy. This will likely depend on interpersonal skills and flexibility in different environments, just as much as job-specific skills.
- Assess Alignment With Company Culture
The interviewer must be clear and definitive about job responsibilities and expectations. It is up to the candidate to demonstrate they have the skills and knowledge to meet and exceed these expectations. But equally important is sussing out whether or not a job candidate will fit with the company’s culture. What traits and values are central to the company, its public relations and its vision for growth? Alignment between the employee and the company’s culture is essential for employee investment in their role.
- Look Toward the Future
A candidate’s career aspirations should match the role they will be working in, opportunities for advancement and the company’s overall plan for growth and development. This can be a focus of interview questions, both direct and open-ended. The hiring manager can also infer much from the candidate’s education, job history and career stability as well as a thorough vetting of references.
- Give the Candidate Room to Explore and Show Interest
A good job candidate should show genuine interest in the job, the people they will be working with and the company. Have a dialogue and see what sorts of questions they ask. What questions do they have for their potential co-workers? How much research have they done on the company, its goals, culture and public perception? What is their vision for their role in the company?
- Focus on a Candidate’s Capacity to Learn, Solve Problems and Think Analytically
A desire to learn and the ability to think and solve problems are integral to being adaptable and innovative in the modern world of business. Companies rely on employees who can take on big problems and new opportunities in creative ways.
Pose a problem that may arise and have a job candidate walk you through how they might work through solving it. Talk about an ongoing project and see how they respond. These windows into a candidate’s thought process can help you gauge their fit.
Hiring the right staff is not simple or cheap. It is one of the most important responsibilities of working professionals in leadership. Assembling a team of employees who align with their roles, their co-workers and the culture is essential to building a successful company. Studying and using effective hiring strategies is a vital part of this process.
Learn more about SIUE’s online MBA program with a Management Specialization.
Sources:
BPlans: 13 Ways to Ensure You Always Hire the Right Person
Entrepreneur: What Really Happens When You Hire the Wrong Candidate
Forbes: 6 Tips for Hiring the Right Employee
Glassdoor: How to Calculate Cost-Per-Hire
New to HR: The Importance of Hiring the Right People
