How to avoid making a bad hire

Recruitment is difficult to get right and sometimes no matter how thorough you are throughout the process, a candidate you thought would be the perfect fit, isn’t.

While this can and does happen from time-to-time, if you’re regularly left doubting your hiring decisions, it’s advisable to take a good look at your recruitment process. Bad hires shouldn’t be a regular thing and putting the wrong people in the wrong job is incredibly costly to your business.

According to an in-depth report carried out by the Recruitment & Employment Confederation (REC), a bad hire for an employee earning £42,000 can set you back £132,015 by the time the issue has been rectified.

Below we have highlighted some of our top tips to help you make successful recruiting decisions time and time again.

Be honest right from the start

If you’re struggling to find good candidates, don’t be tempted to embellish the job spec or make the job sound better than it is at the interview. Honesty is crucial and there’s no point telling someone they will be doing things they won’t be, hiding heavy workloads and promising promotions if you can’t offer them. It won’t take your new employee long to work out the truth and before you know it you will find yourself looking for a new recruit all over again.

Use a recruitment agency

A lot of companies don’t want the added expensive of using a recruitment agency to help with hiring. Believe it or not however, by doing so, you could actually be saving yourself thousands of pounds in the long-run.

Agencies will already know of candidates which saves time, they have access to all the top job boards, they sift through applications and highlight the best ones and even meet candidates before putting them in front of you. Crucially, they also deal with placing people in jobs day in and day out so they know exactly what to look for in a candidate.

Listen to your team

In order to be successful in their role, your new recruit needs to fit in with your current team. If you have a very loud and outgoing team for example, a shy person might feel intimidated and threatened. Alternatively, if your team is of a quieter nature and tends to put their heads down and get on with their work, a naturally chatty person is probably going to be a distraction. The best way to handle this situation is to introduce the person you are interviewing to the team. This allows both sides to determine whether or not it’s the right cultural fit.

Look outside the interview

A lot of what people say and do during an interview is for show. Obviously candidates are looking to impress you and are therefore going to say all the right things. If you really want to know what they will be like to work with, think about how they have acted outside the interview room. Have they been easy to liaise with when it came to setting up a meeting? How did they treat the agency you’re using? How did they interact with your receptionist when they entered the building? All these things say a lot about a person and can really help you to figure out if someone is right for the company or not.

If you would like more advice about recruitment and how to ensure you hire the right person for your roles, please don’t hesitate to contact us and we will be more than happy to help.

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