How to hire the best employees: 10 life hacks from an experienced HR professional

2024 Author: Malcolm Clapton | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 03:44

This technique will help you learn everything you need about candidates, correctly assess their qualities and hire the best.

I have been hiring people for over 12 years. During this time, I have conducted more than 1,000 interviews and developed my own methodology for selecting candidates, which I call the “A-players-formula”. It contains several components that make it the number 1 for efficiency.

Correct job description

My ideal job description structure is not copied from the Internet or job descriptions, but is built according to the following scheme:

• About company - what we do, how many of us, where are our offices.
• Mission of the position - a description of why you are hiring a person at all.
• Command - description of the team in which the person will work.
• Expected results - a clear list of what the candidate will have to do in a year.
• Competencies - basic selection criteria (if a person does not meet them, you will not consider him).
• It will be an advantage - a set of criteria, if any, that will immediately lead the candidate to the interview finalists.
• « Plus karma if you …"- rare criteria. It is unlikely that one person can answer all of them at once, but if there are coincidences, this is almost a finalist.
• What do we offer - a description of what others do not have and why a person should come to us. At least 10 points, at least five words for each point (official design, flexible working hours, insurance - we delete it immediately, everyone has it).
• Contacts - where to send your resume. If the vacancy is published by someone other than the manager in social networks, then it is better to immediately link to the manager's profile on LinkedIn / Facebook so that the person understands who you are.
• Office / team photo - for the candidate, all your text is abstract enough until he sees something realistic. Therefore, add a photo of the office or team in the office.

Here's my fresh example of a job posting text.

Instant reaction

In the A-players market, the best candidates find jobs in just a couple of days. If you have not contacted the candidate immediately, or at least within 24 hours, half of the chances have already been lost.

Competency table

I'm a fan of structured interviews. This is when all candidates are asked the same questions so that the answers can be compared.

I'm also a fan of CBI, or competency interviews. This is when all the questions on my list are rated hard & soft skills. I ask the question not in the format “Do you know what direct search is?”, But in the format “Give an example when you closed a vacancy with direct search”.

Also a very cool thing is Scorecards. This is a table, in the rows of which are the competencies, and in the columns - the names of the candidates. And you see the average score for each candidate.

Here's an example of my Scorecard.

Telephone interview

You do not need to invite everyone to a personal meeting at once, often it is enough to talk for 15 minutes on the phone to understand whether it is worth meeting with the candidate. By phone, I recommend asking questions from the “Competences” section, clarifying salary expectations, the date of readiness to start work, what is interesting for the candidate in your vacancy / company.

Personal interview

I always conduct a structured interview - when all candidates are asked the same questions. My questions are pre-recorded in the Scorecard, I read them from my laptop and give points from 1 to 10, depending on how the answer matches my ideal idea. I'm not chasing 10 points, they almost never happen. Anyone who scores over 7 on average is worthy of being hired.

Valuing values

In addition to assessing competencies, it is important to understand whether the candidate's values match those of the company. To do this, you need to have a list of these values in advance and ask the candidate questions in the format "Give an example when you had to [substitute value]". And evaluate the result.

Assessment of motivation

I always assess motivation with the following question: “How interesting is our vacancy on a 10-point scale? What is missing up to 10 points? This question always works, although it is super simple. If the score is less than 7, that candidate is not eligible.

Sale

Everyone needs A-players, so they will compare you to others. In order not to lose them, you always need to find time for an interview, to tell about you, to “sell” your vacancy. My sale is structured like this:

• Company - 30% of the time I talk about the past and 70% - about the future, form an idea of the super goal of the company towards which we are moving. People want to be part of something meaningful.
• Command - I'm talking about the structure of our team, what makes it cool.
• Vacancy - I am talking about my expectations from a person, I give examples of super tasks - things that will require extra efforts from the candidate, but the result will make you proud.
• Culture - our values, how we work and how we communicate in the company, what we have better than others.
• CEO - what he is. Glassdoor (the number 1 site in the world with job reviews), for example, even has such a criterion - "Approval of the CEO." The figure of the CEO is important to any employee, so I briefly tell you who this person is and what his strengths are.
• Buns - all manifestations of the company's concern for its employees.
• Schedule - violation of work-life-balance, as you know, is becoming the most frequent reason for changing jobs in the world, and I, as a manager, always help employees to find the optimal schedule.
• Development - I tell you how a person can develop in positions, what new knowledge to get and how to apply it at work.
• I am as a manager - I talk about how I manage a team, about my one-on-one meetings with employees, about my management style.

Funnel

I never make a 1 out of 1 choice. Even if I find a superstar, I will compare with others. Ideally, you should interview 10 candidates.

Alarms, or Red Flags

The red flag system is an approach in which you carefully observe the candidate and record everything that bothers you, and then double check all the identified nuances. What could it be:

• the candidate talks too much;
• there are discrepancies (first the candidate said one thing, and then another);
• not ready to switch in 2-3 weeks;
• did not give a clear reason for leaving the previous position;
• cannot give examples of his achievements, and so on.

If I decide to consider the candidate further, then for rechecking, I ask the next interviewer to pay attention to these points.

If, based on the results of all the actions described, I have several finalists, I make the final decision or ask someone else to conduct an additional interview and share their assessments.

This is a simple set of rules that always work, but is extremely often ignored by recruiters and executives. I have rarely met someone who leads Scorecards and writes down the marks in points. Not surprisingly, many then complain about the low level of staff they hire.