If you’re a hiring manager, you’ve probably experienced the negative consequences of unstructured hiring. The lack of alignment between recruiters and interviewers is a prevalent factor.
According to a study, unstructured interviews only accurately predict 14% of a candidate’s actual success on the job, just 7% more than background checks.
Another report claimed, businesses lose $14,900 on each poor hire, and more than 74% of hiring managers have chosen the incorrect candidate for a position.
Thus, using a structured approach to hiring allows you to describe exactly what you’re looking for and how to evaluate potential recruits for those attributes. This eventually helps you hire the right candidates.
Not sure how to design a better hiring process? Just follow these four simple steps:
Step 1: Convey Your Expectations to Potential Hires
Defining the intended results that the ideal recruit will produce is your first responsibility. Consider both their recent successes and their contributions from the past. These results highlight what sets a star performer apart from an average performer.
Consider asking yourself the following questions:
- What targets would the new recruit need to achieve within a year for you to consider this hire a success?
- What would a standout performer achieve in a year?
- What would a star performer need to do in the first 90 days to achieve that?
After you’ve answered these questions, you’ll be able to translate the intended outcomes into attributes.
For example figure out: What abilities, characteristics, and experiences/qualifications are required to reach those outcomes?
You can make “scorecards” to keep track of the abilities, characteristics, and credentials that someone will need to be successful in their next career. The interview procedure will be developed to assess and verify these characteristics for each candidate.
Your scorecard can be as simple as a table that goes on to mention all your expectations and how many of those boxes the potential hire ticks off.
Step 2: Try to Keep the Process as Simple as Possible
Once you’ve defined the role, the next step is to make sure your list of qualities is inclusive.
The Partnership on Employment and Accessible Technology (PEAT) performed a user study, 46% of respondents said that their most recent online job application was “tough to impossible”; of them, 9% had trouble finishing it, and 24% needed help.
This could be a fantastic opportunity to speak with your TA partner if you run into trouble or even if you’d just like some additional perspective.
Here are a few questions you can ask them:
- Can you lessen the requirements for a candidate’s qualifications?
- Can you make the application process less tech-savvy with justified time limits?
- Do your requirements have the potential to accidentally omit qualified applicants?
- Is there a different way to screen or test for that attribute?
- Can you be inclined toward seeking a growth mindset?
- Can you make the interpersonal qualities you’re testing for clear by giving them a better definition?
Step 3: Set Up a Standardized Structure for Evaluating Applicants
Now is the time to put everything together by putting together your interview kit. We advise using interview kits for two main reasons: first, it might be challenging for interviewers to come up with effective questions on the go!
An interview toolkit also offers a standardized structure for evaluating applicants. After the process, this provides you with greater information for recruiting decisions.
Then you can select the employee who is most qualified to lead the interviews from within your current staff.
Generally speaking, asking employees who currently have a similar position or who have specific expertise in the areas they are evaluating is beneficial.
By asking specific questions or giving assignments that test for particular qualities, you might learn more about a candidate’s relevant experiences and skills.
How do you turn interview questions into focus attributes? Look for methods to delve deeper and gather specific details based on scenarios.
Here is an example of a sample question you might think about using:
- Describe three actions you’ve done recently to advance your career.
- Describe an instance when you intentionally sought out criticism to increase your output or effectiveness in a particular situation.
- Why did you ask for that criticism?
- How did you put the criticism you got to use? How do you apply those lessons to the way you work now?
- Describe a time when you received feedback that you didn’t agree with. Why did you object? How did you get in touch with the individual who told you about it?
Once you’ve specified what you’re testing for, choose who to test for it and when to do so during the interview process.
For instance, if there are any qualifications you need for the position, you should generally screen for them early in the process and focus on a candidate’s drive and working style in later interviews or evaluations.
- Talk about what it means to pass the exam or interview and any circumstances that would automatically disqualify an applicant.
- You may rely on your scorecards to direct interviewers to grade candidates and take thorough, impartial notes, thereby formalizing the process.
To help your team members adjust to this method of interviewing and candidate assessment, you might need to give them some training. Using your TA team as a learning partner, take advantage of this additional chance to learn more about hiring best practices.
Step 4: Look for Ways to Continually Upgrade Your Hiring Process
After you’ve put everything in place, you should continuously monitor your hiring procedure.
Here are some crucial areas to monitor:
- Track the conversion rates of candidates as they move through your pipeline.
- Do you have too high or too low pass rates?
- Are particular racial or ethnic groups leaving your pipeline at disproportionately high rates?
- Ask your TA partner to provide you access to this information if you don’t already have it.
Sara Guizzo explains, “Greenhouse Inclusion allows us to see who is entering the pipeline and where they are exiting it. We can bring this up with our hiring managers to find out what’s going on—does the feedback-gathering process take too long?”
- Make the necessary adjustments to ensure that your procedure is as effective and equitable as feasible. Your selections and activities during the hiring process are crucial for
- Make sure the people conducting the interviews are prepared for them and arrive on schedule. Make it mandatory to submit interview comments as soon as possible. Before consulting with others, be sure that every member of the hiring team has submitted their comments. By excluding biographical information from take-home tests, you can also lessen affinity bias.
- Keep an eye on the candidate feedback you are receiving regarding the experience you are providing for them. Take the appropriate step based on what you hear from your applicants.
For instance, can you make the technical examination more challenging if engineering candidates feel it is too simple for a certain role? Can you add a product demo to an earlier stage of the hiring process if candidates say they made it to the finish without completely knowing what your business does?
Do not forget that this is a continuous process. If you’re not ready to implement better hiring on an organizational level just yet, why not start small?
You can get in touch with BenchPoint, a health tech recruitment firm if you are looking forward to designing a better hiring process for your company. We’ll work with you to create workplaces that are employee-focused and result-driven, and we’ll be pleased to assist you with even the simplest problems.