3 Tips to Avoid a Bad Hire

When interviewing prospective candidates, we know they are putting their best foot forward. Sometimes, despite their best effort, we see through any façade and can quickly side-step them. In other cases, we simply don’t see it and end up with an employee who isn’t quite who they represented themselves to be.

Overall, however, we want to make better hiring decisions so we don’t waste the time, energy and money on hiring the wrong person for the job. Here are some tips to help you do that:

Have a solid hiring process

Use a checklist to keep hiring actions consistent. A good job description will help you identify your specific needs and help you screen applicants to immediately reduce the next steps of background checks, reference calling, and interviewing.

Having a solid hiring process is a critical first step and many employers use a staffing agency for this to simplify the procedure even further. A quality staffing company will place the ads in appropriate places, screen candidates, and handpick the best applicants to have them move on.

Interview well

Use the same interview questions for each candidate to reduce bias, and use multiple interviewers, whether all at once, such as a panel, or one at a time. Interviewers can compare notes about each candidate and offer insights that another interviewer may have missed. Discuss any ‘red flags’.

Look again at the job requirements and ask questions that will reveal the candidate’s proficiency towards, or away from, your ideal skills and traits. Consider using personality or skills tests to source traits, and even have the candidate shadow another employee to get a sense of their fit in the culture of the organization.

Check their background

Whether or not you use a background check, you will want to call references. Too often candidates leave references and hiring employers simply don’t make the calls, missing out on valuable information. Follow all applicable laws in regards to background checks, or have your staffing agency do the work to ensure laws are properly adhered to, including those for drug testing, if applicable.

Looking for your best and brightest team members? Let CNS (Colorado Network Staffing) help you with recruiting and obtaining talent in this competitive market. As a sole human resource provider for our clients, we save you time, energy, and money by providing experience, resources, and top-level management for your staffing needs. Contact us today at 303-430-1441.

Recent Posts

Archives