Your company is always hiring, and your people are critical to your success, so selecting the right talent is extremely important for your organization.
But, in reality, most companies don’t have a good talent selection process. Often the process lacks consistency and a degree of thoroughness that leaves a company at risk for making hiring mistakes.
Too often companies treat talent selection as an event, when it should be treated as a process; a clearly defined and thought-out process. A process that strives to secure the best talent for you and saves you money, which can only mean more success for your business!
Most companies don’t put enough importance on talent selection
Research by Michigan State University shows that the typical interviewing process most companies use is, at best, only 14 percent effective in predicting successful hires. And finding and choosing new hires, should be more than only interviewing.
Other research also proves that talent selection needs to improve—even at top companies. In a study of over 70 organizational and talent thought leaders and hundreds of research studies, the Metrus Group found that most of the companies they examined didn’t have highly efficient or effective processes for screening and selecting people.
All this means that it’s probably a good idea for you to take a look at the talent selection at your company. Surely, improvements can be made.
10 Tips for creating the right talent selection process for your business
Your HR staff and others involved in your company’s talent management should spend their time only on the most-qualified recruits. A good process helps ensure this happens and in a timely manner.
If you’d like to know more about creating a good talent selection process, the following tips should help.
- Create clear job descriptions and a better understanding of the jobs your company needs to fill. Come up with 3 to 5 key accountabilities, or abilities, the person will need. And think about the mindset for the position. This is the foundation for your process to be successful, so don’t take it lightly.
- Make sure your selection strategy aligns with the broader organizational talent demands and encourages best practice processes and procedures that ensure consistency and fair treatment of all those involved.
- Use the same process for each person considered for each position. Also, evaluate people in the same way. Use the same interview questions, which are specific to the job and specific to company values.
- Incorporate web and/or telephone pre-screening tools early into the process. Link these tools to your website or job board to make sure people meet your minimum requirements.
- Recruitment software can also simplify workflows. Applicant tracking systems are effective and provide solutions for any sized company.
- Create hiring teams. These teams should include HR, the hiring manager, key team members the hire would be working with as well as key company leaders who the hre may need to interface with to be successful.
- Incorporate some objective measurement into your process. For example, use peer interviewing to help assess the candidate’s fit within the culture.
- Develop a rating system in order to objectively measure candidates who make it through pre-screening.
- Accurately record information and keep records to support selection decisions.
- Be flexible and open to continuous improvement. Set up a way to measure and evaluate your process and any changes you may make.
Now that you know more about the importance of a talent selection process, what changes will you make to elevate the process?
Photo Credit: Flickr user Victor1558
