Are Traditional Hiring Practices Obsolete?

It's a manager's nightmare... 

The candidate they've recently hired – who had a perfect resume, exceptional interview, and flawless list of references – is sitting at their new desk confused and can’t perform the daily assignments they were "qualified" for. 

What’s next? Find a new role for them to fill within the company, or cut your losses?

Maybe, it's time to look at the ROOT of your problem – your hiring techniques... 
 

Many recruiters and hiring managers view the talent selection process as a “necessary evil” – merely a series of steps through which candidates must pass, or boxes that must be checked off in order to fill open positions.  

Failure to review the effectiveness of the hiring process itself, will result in an ineffective talent selection systems that become embedded in an organization simply because, "We've always done it this way."

Organizations that truly comprehend talent selection, understand that the process should be an evolving one, constantly being reviewed and improved over times as jobs change, organizations change, candidates change, and cultures change. Regular and continuous research should be conducted to analyze the quality of hire resulting from the selection process itself and to identify opportunities to improve the talent selection system.

Common obstacles HR Managers encounter:

1) Recruiting an adequate supply of well qualified candidates.

Many centers, unfortunately, seem to favor a just-in-time philosophy – the same approach used to manage physical inventory – in which a pool of “replacements” is identified quickly by posting an advertisement on a job board, rewarding employees for referrals or by calling a staffing office.

2) Accurately assessing candidates’ likelihood of success.

Although, many centers do a reasonable job assessing candidates’ knowledge (e.g., computer software and hardware), ability, and personality characteristics. However, when it comes to measuring essential job-relevant skills, far too many centers miss the mark.

Finding, hiring, and retaining employees with the characteristics necessary for long-term success can provide an organization with a significant competitive advantage!

Solution:
A comprehensive applicant screening and placement solution is a strategic imperative for leading companies. In today’s competitive environment, FurstPerson is helping progressive companies replace traditional applicant screening practices with continuous data-fed processes built around sophisticated assessments that accurately predict a candidate’s likelihood of success in terms of producing better customer satisfaction, increased sales, and higher customer retention.

FurstPerson is 100% focused on designing and developing assessment tools for customer contact jobs, spanning contact centers, retail, hospitality, sales, field services, and back-office roles. This relatively narrow focus has enabled FurstPerson to develop deep expertise, efficient processes, and proprietary tools and technology that produce exceptional results. For example, FurstPerson’s data warehouse is the largest and richest source of intelligence on customer contact competencies in the world.

FurstPerson provides a hiring software solution supported by a professional service team that enables customer contact organizations to: 

• Define job profiles
• Select web-based assessments based on the job profiles
• Match candidates to these job profiles
• Create development plans for new hires
• Conduct ongoing business analysis to drive performance improvement
• Resulting in hiring the right person into the right job the first time.

 
 – What approaches have you used to assess prospect employees? Please submit your response below.

All information compiled in this blog post was gathered from "How to Measure Contact Center Skills Using Multimedia Simulations." – compiled by FurstPerson.

To read the full text and discover more solutions that help candidates find a job they will love and enable clients to hire people that will perform well, be satisfied, and stay with the company – visit www.furstperson.com.

Hire Furst, Hire Right – FurstPerson

3 Reasons the Wrong People get Hired

Carpenters live by the saying, "Measure twice, cut once." 

Although, most HR Managers are dealing with stacks of resumes, rather than lumber – they should live by the same principals when selecting a candidate. While the extra work and time used to asses, or measure the aspects related to a future candidate's potential success in a role can instigate neglect during hiring – the payoff is far greater than the possibility of re-hiring.

Here are 3 reasons HR Managers select the wrong candidate for the job:

1) Misleading Job Description: 

Those who ask, shall receive – as the saying goes. Organizations that fail to conduct thorough analysis of the job and competencies necessary to fit with and succeed in that role, will often fail to attract the right candidates. A written description identifying a job by title, essential functions and requirements – a well-crafted description also spelling out the knowledge, abilities and skills required to perform a job successfully will in the end attract those most eligible. These additional descriptions can also be extremely helpful with employee training and career development. Also, once effective job descriptions are crafted, business owners can be more effective at reporting relationships and working conditions in their business communities.

2) Not Evaluating the Whole Person:

Hiring a candidate who has the right personal characteristics and motivations to fit with the job, but lacks the knowledge, skills, or abilities to perform the job well leaves your organization in a positions of deciding after the fact whether you can train your new hires to develop the necessary skills – an endeavor that may prove less than cost effective. Hiring a candidate who has the right skills but lacks the personality/motivational fit with the role often leads to employees who dislike the job and view it only as a stop gap until something better comes along. Selection processes that address as many of the critical job competencies as possible will be the most effective in helping your organization to identify the right candidates for the role.  Unfortunately, assessing all aspects related to a candidate’s potential success in the role can be somewhat time consuming – there is no “magic test” than can measure all of the critical competencies for a given job in 10 minutes or less.  But if you are willing to invest a little extra time in the pre-hire process, the payoff will be higher quality employees who stay on the job and generate revenue for your organization.

3) Ineffective Hiring Process:

Many recruiters and hiring managers view the talent selection process as simply a “necessary evil” – merely a series of steps through which candidates must pass or boxes that must be checked off in order to eventually fill open positions. They often fail to review the effectiveness of the hiring process itself, and therefore ineffective talent selection systems can become embedded in an organization simply because, “we’ve always done it this way.”  Organizations that truly understand talent selection, understand that the process should be an evolving one. Constantly being reviewed and improved over times as jobs change, organizations change, candidates change, and cultures change. Regular and continuous research should be conducted to analyze the quality of hire resulting from the selection process itself and to identify opportunities to improve the talent selection system.

FurstPerson Solution:

Companies that want to hire strong performers and reduce attrition – know the importance of Talent Selection. Hiring is expensive, time-consuming and has important consequences for the business. Companies that engage in high volume hiring for front-line positions, such as call centers or retail stores, want to reduce the amount of “person hours” spent reviewing and comparing candidates.  The use of well developed, standardized, valid, objective, and automated selection tools is an excellent way to let technology and science do the “heavy lifting,” accurately and reliably predict a candidate’s likelihood of on-the-job success, and focus the company’s time and resources on only those candidates who have been “pre-qualified".

– What mistakes have you made when hiring a new employee? Please submit your response below.

All information compiled in this blog post was gathered from "How to Measure Contact Center Skills Using Multimedia Simulations." – compiled by FurstPerson.

To read the full text and discover more solutions that help candidates find a job they will love and enable clients to hire people that will perform well, be satisfied, and stay with the company – visit www.furstperson.com.

Hire Furst, Hire Right – FurstPerson