3 Must-Haves in Your Hiring Process

Unless you’re building an entirely new business or opening a new branch or facility, you likely already have a hiring process in place. But like all things, hiring processes must change to meet the demands of the constantly evolving world in which we live. Staying abreast of new technology (efficiency), redefined guidelines (legal defensibility) and the demands of the organization (creating an effective strategy for growth) is an important responsibility that should not be undertaken without careful consideration and planning.

The following are three must-haves of any hiring process, whether you’re starting from scratch, expanding your business into a new region, or revamping your existing processes. It’s never too soon to start planning ahead.

1. Relevant Benchmarks
Before you begin the hiring process design work, take time to determine what success looks like to your key stakeholders. Is it important that the time-to-fill ratio is minimized or are there concerns around being kept in the loop about how their candidates are doing? Start by asking, rather than assuming, what their “wish list” for this work looks like. While not every wish will be attainable, this step can be helpful in determining where to spend your energy.
While collecting information, be sure that you’re also communicating the value of the hiring process and the benefit that you’re bringing to the organization. Discuss what metrics matter, how this process could improve those metrics and how these benchmarks will be used to define success. Keep your stakeholders informed about the progress of the work and seek feedback post-implementation.

2. Evaluation Criteria

Outside of defining expectations and determining benchmarks for success, be sure to consider how the candidates will be evaluated as well. What are the basic qualifications for the position? What behavioral standards and competencies are critical for success in the position and in your organization? Finally, how will you measure candidates against these criteria in a way that is accurate, predictive, consistent, legally defensible, palatable to your candidate pool, and supportive of your hiring goals?
This is the heart of what we do at Select – we bring our technical expertise and years of experience across a wide variety of industries – and it is still often a challenge to determine what tools are the best fit for each organization’s culture and selection needs. This is not a step to be undertaken lightly – how you evaluate your candidates will shape the success of your project and your company.

3. A Game Plan

Creating relevant benchmarks and deciding on evaluation criteria can be intensive. Each involves a boatload of communication, documentation, resource management and follow-up. At times it might feel like you’re moving at the speed of light. Sometimes it may feel like you’re trudging through sludge and making little progress. You may even wake up in the middle of the night trying to remember if you missed any important details or to-do’s.
To help manage any important project (or process change), and the anxiety that comes along with it, map out every step of the project along with the timelines that you need to hit along the way. Track who “owns” each to-do and how each item is linked to the broader project goals. Check things off the list as “done” when they’re completed (no real reason, it just feels good to cross things off of the list!). As you make progress be sure to update the plan as needed to account for changing timelines, any setbacks and new tasks. Finally, don’t forget to check back in with your stakeholders and let them know (at a high-level) about all of the great progress that is being made.
Hiring great people, and doing so in a way that meets all of your organization’s needs, can be incredibly challenging. Thankfully it can also be immensely rewarding… and completely manageable.

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