Hiring the perfect team member can be a time-consuming and daunting task that can significantly impact your company’s success. Let’s look at some strategies to help identify and hire the ideal candidate for your team.

• The first step is to have a captivating and detailed job description to attract the candidate you are looking for.

  You will want to write a job description that clearly outlines the responsibilities but also touches on skills that the applicant should possess. For example, consider technical skills along with communication, adaptability, and teamwork skills. Remember, this is often the applicant’s first introduction to the position and possibly your company.

• Advertise the position on various platforms.

  This gives you a bigger pool of people — social media, job boards, career websites, referrals, and in-house recruiting. Diverse platforms increase your chances of finding the “perfect” fit.

• Select the best candidates to pass along to the interview process.

  You can conduct a brief phone interview to help eliminate incompatible applicants.

• Review your interview process.

  Have more than one person part of the interview process, such as someone from HR and the manager the new hire will report to.

• Interview questions: User behavior-based interviewing questions.

  • This involves asking candidates to describe how they would handle specific challenges from previous positions.  You can also provide them with a scenario and ask how they would manage it.
  • Ask the candidate what they are looking for in an employer — maybe they want opportunities for advancement, and knowing you are a small company, advancement may not be an option until a way down the road.
  • Make sure your candidate’s goals align with your company’s goals.

• Once interviews are completed,

  conduct a hiring meeting to review the interviewer’s thoughts on each of the candidates.

The process of hiring the perfect team member requires a clear vision of what your company’s needs are and a well-structured hiring process; Incorporating these steps into your hiring process will help you find the right team member who will contribute to your company’s success.

Written by Tracy Neal