In front of you is a large pile of resumes. You’ve already started picking through them and found a few promising candidates but you only have enough openings for one person. You’re not sure who to choose so you call them all back in for a second interview.
No matter how many interviews you conduct it’s always difficult to make a choice when you’ve got multiple qualified candidates on your hands. There are a few tricks that you can use to find out who will truly be the best person for the position though. Keep reading for a complete guide on how to hire the right person.
1. Look for Someone Who is Career Oriented
You need a candidate who is serious about furthering their career. If they seem to be toying with the idea of a lot of different career options or seems like they haven’t hesitated to leave a bunch of jobs then, they may not be the best fit for you.
You need someone who is loyal to your company and sees it as a career, not just another job. So even if they are great in the interview process you may want to weed them out and go with a candidate that will allow you to reap all these benefits.
2. Give them a Problem to Solve
Before you even bring someone in for an interview, you should make them solve a problem as part of the application process. This problem should present itself in the form of a scenario. Have each candidate type up a response telling you how they would handle the situation.
Bring in the applicants with the best responses and ask them about it in more detail during the interview.
3. Do a Bit More than Interview Them
If you don’t have them solve an issue on their application you should do it during the interview at the very least. For the most part, you want to see if they can handle an actual on the job scenario. So you’re going to throw one at them.
For example, if the main duties they will be performing is answering a phone, you’ll make them do a mock phone call. If they will be selling a product ask them to sell you a pen that’s laying on your desk. You never want to stick to only asking questions during an interview.
4. Take Them Away from the Interview
During an interview, the candidate is trying to impress you. They aren’t going to act like themselves. One way to learn more about them and see what they are really like is to get them away from the interview pressure.
Invite them out to lunch with a few of the other workers. The way they interact with their potential co-workers will say a lot about them. You’ll also be able to ask these other workers for their options about the person at the end of the day too.
Be careful about what workers you invite to this little outing. If you bring a bunch of senior executives in, the candidate may act as they would during an interview because they are trying too hard to impress them.
5. Use Their References
Are you asking for employees to put references down on their applications? If you’re not then you should be. If you are already and you’re not actually calling the references, then you’re doing it wrong.
You need to actually utilize them. It’s your chance to get an outside view of what the candidate is like in a job setting or at home even. Ask questions like if they have a good sense of humor or if their work area always remained clean. You need to know more about them than their work ethics.
6. Cultural Fit
Every company has a work culture and you need candidates who aren’t going to disrupt it with a negative attitude. Anyone you consider should have great social skills so they can add to your already established work culture.
While you can get sort of a good feel for their social skills during the interview, that’s the interview. They’re putting on a face to impress you. You won’t be able to get an idea of how they will treat a difficult customer or handle workplace conflict.
This is where you take out those references we were talking about. You don’t know how they’ll act when conflict arises but their former employer sure does.
7. Do a Trial Period
Perhaps the best way to weed out employees that aren’t going to work for your company is to put all new candidates under a trial period. This can span for their first 30-90 days. Just long enough for you to see how good of a fit they are.
During this trial period, you’ll still pay the candidate of course but most companies do so at a lower rate until they are hired on full-time. Make sure that you don’t tell them that they are on a trial run if you go this route.
Tell them that they are hired temporarily for X amount of weeks. At the end of their trial run, you will keep them or let them go. This process makes it easier to move on to the next candidate if they aren’t a good fit.
How to Hire the Right Person to Fill Your Position
When you’ve got a stack of promising resumes in front of you, it could be hard for you to weed through them to find the best candidate. You wish you could hire everyone but you have a limited number of positions available. If you use this guide on how to hire the right person, it may make it easier for you to make the call.
Did these tips help you find a great candidate? We’re happy to hear it! Check out our blog for more business pointers like these.
