4. Build the gauntlet, trust the gauntlet
 |
| Don't take the gauntlet literally...it won't end well |
They say patience is a virtue for a
reason. Virtues are hard earned, but well deserved. Patience in your selection
process is so crucial for a myriad of reasons, starting with the mighty dollar.
According to an AARP study, the cost of replacing an experienced worker is at
least 50% of that person’s base salary in turnover related costs. According to
a study at Berkeley, the hiring of a new recruit alone will cost about $7000.
Links to both articles are posted below. If you’d like to look at how much it
will cost to replace an employee at your organization, Express scripts has a
cool calculator you can use as well. Their link is below as well.
Long
story short, it’s not cheap to replace someone, so you want to keep your talent
once you select them. That in mind, your process should not be a rapid fire,
one and done type of interview. Your HR team is talented I’m sure, but they
should not be the final say on whether someone moves forward or not. You need
to paint a full picture of the kind of candidate you want, but as a selecting
manager you should be actively involved in the process from start to finish.
The process itself, for you strategists out there, should touch every aspect of
the organization. You want individuals that not only have the requisite skills
to do the job; you also want individuals who can fit into the culture you are
trying to build. This is why it’s so important to define your values and the
behaviors you believe reflect them early in your company’s life cycle, because
behavioral and cultural style interviewing is crucial in garnering the right
fit for a team.
The
selection process should touch HR, the selecting department, and whichever
departments the role is to interface with. It sounds a like a lot, and the
recruiter side of me is screaming “hurry up! We have requisitions to fill”, but
you don’t want to get this wrong. It’s too easy to do it, so take your time. If
you’re going to implement this strategy, you need to earn buy-in from all the
parties we mentioned. It’s not a haphazard process to ask people to give up an
hour of their day every few weeks or so to sit with a candidate that won’t even
be in their department. Remember to be a creator of value when you are asking
someone to sacrifice their time for you. You are letting them know you value
them as a partner, but that you also want to get this right for everyone’s
sake.
Once
you’ve communicated the importance and you have the buy-in, everyone needs to
be speaking the same language. Interview training is a rarity within smaller
companies today, and for larger practices it’s not widely practiced within a
department. Take the time to either partner with HR or a member of your team
that’s well versed in the legal and behavioral intricacies of talent selection
to build and host these trainings. If you put a bunch of people in a room and
just tell them to ask questions they’ll do it, and they’ll all be looking for
different things. Create the expectation of what to look for, and your team
will take that expectation and make sure it aligns with their own personal
expectations. Once we get this process in place, we’re ready to get cooking.
| So long recruiter, hello in house system! |
The
selection process is not easy at any level. Your entry level positions many
times get overlooked because they don’t command the salary of a C suite, but
trust me, they will affect your bottom line too. One paper cut doesn’t hurt,
but ten or fifteen and you’re regretting the day you asked for more stationary
in your office. If you don’t have integrity to the systems that permeate every
level of your organization’s talent management strategy, you’re going to have
too many of those bad hires and not enough good selections. Be deliberate,
involve the right people, don’t settle, and look at what you needed, want, and
will need and want. Say goodbye to those recruiters, and hello to your new
talent management system! Enjoy!
Stay inspired, be developed, be the change!
~AI
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