HIRING RIGHT – KNOW YOUR CANDIDATE & KNOW THE POSITION YOU’RE HIRING FOR
Hiring the Right Candidate
Making the offer of employment, and hiring the right candidate is often the most important cornerstone of gaining the services of your identified candidate. Every individual has unique needs and wants and employers should gain insights into every candidates “sweet spot” to make the offer appealing to the prospective candidate. Remember, the best employee’s are employed and they will only make a move if the offer exceeds their expectations. Some people want to work outside the cities, or work flex-time, some only move jobs if there is a bigger challenge or choose a specific team to work with to gain experience, etc. Money is often not the deciding factor, although anyone welcomes the increase in earnings.
Getting the candidate to accept the offer of employment and its terms and conditions requires negotiation skills and awareness of expectations. It is always wise to ask the candidate during the interview process: “What if your company makes you a counter offer?” This question will give you a lot of answers as to what motivates the candidate to leave or stay in his current employment. Sourcing and finding the right person for the job is often a costly and lengthy process. It would be sad if the candidate accepts the counter offer and then the employer is left back at square one.
Internal and external recruiters often try and push a certain candidate to just fill a position. In a commission driven industry such as external recruiters this is very tempting, but a square peg does not fit into a round hole, and if the match is not mutually beneficial the candidate will leave and the recruiter will risk a “fall off”. In the case of an internal recruiter the pressure from upper management can trigger a knee jerk hire that often times leads to turnover and additional pressure from upper management. Not only are the internal and external recruiters responsible for a hire that will last, they are also judged by the expenses associated with the hires.
Every individual has unique needs and wants, and a hiring manager, when hiring the right candidate, should attempt to gain insights into every candidates “sweet spot” to make the offer appealing to the prospective candidate.
To be truly effective you must know the candidate and the job opportunity being offered inside and out. Too often employers try to fit an available candidate to a job, instead of a job to a qualified and desirable candidate. A much wiser strategy is to make the available position match the skills and personality of the candidate you want to work for you.
To do this, one must gain a clear understanding of the people being interviewed and what they are looking for. Two questions in particular get to the root of a candidates career motivations:
Why are you looking to leave your current company?
What would you do if your company made you a counter offer?
The answers to these questions will invariably tell you what they are looking to get out of the job opportunity you are offering, and what it will take to make an offer they will accept. When hiring the right candidate, learn to ask questions like these, then really listen and interpret the answers. Your success rate is sure to rise.
As always, if you have any other questions about this topic or would like some information on Temps and Staffing, we’d love to show you some solutions that have worked for our clients. You can reach us directly through our contact form button below, or calling us at 781-982.JOBS (5627).