Key Takeaways:
- Be alert for anything that suggests the candidate has previously experienced issues collaborating with coworkers or management. Additionally, inquire about the candidate’s organizational skills and ability to manage a lot of work and change priorities.
- Giving candidates a task to complete or an issue to resolve has less to do with checking the outcome. It’s a clever way to learn how they create processes and approach problem-solving.
- The candidate should be upfront about his or her inadequacies. This speaks volumes about a candidate’s honesty which is a very vital and an absolute green flag for your company.
- You can learn useful details about their degree of interest in your company and the business highlights, how they approach problem-solving, how they handle data, and more.
For a business to succeed financially and culturally, it must hire top individuals. Finding out too late that a candidate isn’t a good fit for the position or business might put you back where you started because recruiting not only takes effort and money but a lot of your crucial time too.
About 74% of recruiters to one poll claim to have hired the wrong person in the past.
Many businesses are unsure about how they will find candidates to fill unfilled positions in light of the Great Resignation and the expanding candidate market. Starting the hiring process off right is essential.
The recruiting process will go more smoothly and efficiently if you keep an eye out for the warning signs because they can assist you to determine if an applicant qualifies for the next round or needs to be eliminated.
These four indicators can help you determine just that:
How to Determine if a Candidate is the Right Fit?
1. Keep an Eye Out for Candidates that Have Researched Your Business Well
Candidates who have done their research on your business and the position beforehand make for excellent hiring. They can ramp up more quickly, tend to be better culture fits, and arrive with the appropriate expectations. Therefore, if a candidate demonstrates that they’ve taken the time to thoroughly research your company, they might just be a good fit for the role.
According to Skillcrush’s Director of Operations, “the ideal candidate comes prepared for the interview with loads of knowledge about our company but is also keen to learn more about all our new product launches and our target audience. I enjoy it when applicants have a transparent understanding of our website, newsletter, and online resources. By spending the time to research us before their interview, I can see that they are capable of being self-directed.”
However, candidates should also be familiar with the culture and values of your organization in addition to the business’s hard facts.
The ideal candidate, according to Pamela Shand, CEO of a career counseling firm, is knowledgeable of “the company’s vision, mission and core values of the organization. This tells me they are very interested in the roles and aren’t searching for just any job. It suggests that they put more emphasis on building a long-term relationship with us rather than leaving as soon as someone offers a higher package.”
2. Consider Candidates that Roll Up Your Skill Wheel the Right Way
An average job posting receives a stunning 250 applications.
Recruiters face a problem in sorting through the huge pool of potential candidates to identify the best fit. Sometimes it could feel like looking for a needle in a haystack. As a result, it becomes crucial for recruiters to test the candidates’ competencies.
According to one study, 65% of employers think candidates should have relevant work experience. This can make it simple and quick for prospective new employees to pick up the ropes. That’s why you should zero in on the candidate’s experience.
Start by listing all the responsibilities a specific job position entails. Then you can inquire with them about whether they had similar responsibilities in former employers.
It might be difficult to ask questions that are predictive of competence and position fit, interpret the answers consistently among candidates, and conduct productive interviews. Take customer service representatives as an illustration. Ideal applicants for these positions will have a strong sense of resilience because they deal with challenging situations and speak with numerous clients each day.
But how can we recognize and quantify resilience?
Consider using additional techniques to supplement interviews. Hiring managers can more precisely detect soft talents thanks to several tools. Pre-hire evaluation tools assist hiring managers in the screening of candidates by recognizing hard and soft skills that are possessed by top performers.
The technology analyzes employee questionnaires and performance data from an organization to identify the characteristics shared by its top performers. Using this information, a candidate survey is subsequently developed, which tests for desired qualities at an early stage of the hiring process.
3. Clearly state the abilities and necessities for the position
Research indicates that 41% of recruiters said that evaluating candidates during the interview would be their biggest issue in 2021. They didn’t know what to look for or how to form an opinion.
How can this issue be solved?
The abilities, behaviors, and requirements for the post should be clearly defined by hiring managers and recruiters. What does contemporary role success look like? What impact does this have on abilities, knowledge, and behavior? The recruiting process will be streamlined starting with the advertisement and continuing through the assessment, testing, and interview stages if there is a clear knowledge of what the “perfect” candidate looks like.
Sharing a “wishlist” of qualities, features, and qualifications with recruiters isn’t as straightforward as it would seem. For recruiters to create job listings strategically, it is important to develop a thorough awareness of the talents that are essential to a position.
Hiring can be hampered by a job posting with an unreasonable list of required skills and qualifications. Men are more likely to apply for jobs when they meet 60% of the requirements, according to research. Women, however, can only apply if they completely fulfill the conditions.
This isn’t a lack of confidence; rather, it’s an effort to save no one’s time. Women tend to view qualifications as a necessity rather than a wishlist for a job.
Making requirements too general or vague won’t help because it will encourage applicants without the required degree or depth of experience.
4. Look out for Honest Candidates
Recruiters frequently refer to the “ideal” applicant. But in actuality, every contender will have certain shortcomings. But the truthful ones will come clean.
According to Fit Small Business career and workplace researcher Laura Handrick, “the candidate should be upfront about his or her inadequacies.” For instance, a candidate might be a pro in technology but he/she should also be willing to disclose their uncomfortable territories which may be giving a presentation in person or public speaking in general. According to Handrick, such a candidate “is one I’m more likely to think of as self-aware.” Self-awareness is a crucial interpersonal ability that distinguishes a candidate from the competition.
In a similar vein, Handrick continues, “instead of just faking their prior work experience, I prefer someone who tells me about a career mistake and how he or she recovered and learned from it.”
The ideal applicant, though, is eager to learn and advance rather than one who tries to persuade me that they have never erred. If you want people who can grow with the organization, hiring people with learning agility is essential.”
Do not forget to inquire about the candidate’s motivations for applying.
Although it’s a straightforward query, the response reveals a lot. People want to work for organizations that they support and where they can consistently deliver their best work.
Companies want to accomplish the same goal. Finding applicants who are enthusiastic about your business is essential to finding top employees.
Engaged and motivated employees are those who feel linked to the organization’s mission and values. A strong applicant will be able to describe why they want to work for a certain company based on how its culture, values, and mission fit their schema.
A good applicant cannot be determined solely by their resume. The applicant who impresses you on paper might let you down in person. You should therefore devote all of your resources and attention to the interview.
Watch out for the traits listed above and learn how to evaluate talents, ask the correct questions, and determine the candidate’s values.
Contact BenchPoint, healthcare IT recruiters, if you need assistance finding a qualified applicant for an interview. We’ll work with you to streamline your hiring processes and find a candidate that will be a good fit for your business.