How to Hire the Perfect Employee

The hiring process can be long and arduous but finding that perfect employee is priceless—so, it’s worth the effort. A great hire can help your company become more profitable and may even lead to better team morale if you’re lucky.

If you’re a business owner or hiring manager, making a great hiring choice is critical to the success of your business. But don’t feel intimated! We’ve compiled a list of steps you can take to find a great employee who can make a positive contribution to your company.

Advertise in the right places

Although Craigslist and other mass job posting sites allow you to cast a wide net for candidates during your search, you’ll end up wasting time filtering through irrelevant applicants. Instead, it’s a better idea to focus on hiring using specialty sites and niche industry sites where you’re more likely to get a good candidate.

If you feel like you’re not getting good applicants for your job posting, consider outsourcing the work to a recruiter, who can reach out to potential candidates on places like LinkedIn on your behalf.

Don’t know where to start? Here are some niche job posting site to check out:

• CoolWorks.com
• Dice.com
• Efinancialcareers.com
• Snagajob.com
• Talentzoo.com

Phone screening questions

After you’ve sorted through the first round of applications, it’s time to hold phone interviews. A phone screen interview is essential to the hiring process because it ensures that neither the candidate nor the hiring manager waste time. After all, an applicant can seem perfect on paper, but it may become clear he or she isn’t the right fit after a call.A phone screen allows you to better understand a candidate’s intentions and explain the role to applicants more comprehensively. For candidates, phone screens allow them to ask questions and get answers so they can gauge their own interest better and understand the details of the position.

Here are a few questions to ask during a screening call:

• Are you still interested and available for this position?
• Can you tell me why you think you’re a good fit for this role?
• Why do you want to leave your current company and position?
• What is your ideal working situation?
• What is the salary range you’re looking for?
• What is your availability in the next week for an interview?

Video screening questions

When you’re ready to bring in your top picks for a final interview, it’s important to ask pertinent questions to assess whether the candidates fit in with your company from both a professional and cultural standpoint.

Here are a few questions you may want to ask during a video interview:

• Tell me a little bit about what you do in your current role.
• What are your strengths? What are your weaknesses?
• What attracted you to the company? What attracted you to this role?
• What skills will you bring to this position?
• Why should we hire you?
• Where do you want to be in five years?
• What would you describe as your leadership style?
• What work project are you most proud of and why?
• What assignment was the most difficult for you, and how did you overcome it?
• How do you deal with communication issues or conflict?
• How do you handle competing priorities while on the job?
• How do you describe your work style?
• What’s your ideal work environment?
• What tools do you use to keep yourself organized?

Background check

An online background check is one of the final steps you should take before deciding to make a hire. It’s critically important to verify a candidate’s identity so you don’t end up hiring a bad egg. With a background check, you can obtain important information including an applicant’s criminal history, current and previous addresses, credit report, fraud alerts, name and social security number match alert, and other critical details. If a candidate passes a background check, you’ll have peace-of-mind you’re making the right choice.

Pre-employment testing

Hundreds of companies use pre-employment tests in their recruitment process to filter out best-fit candidates for job positions. There are different types of psychometric tests: aptitude, personality, skill tests and etc. Personality tests are designed to measure the candidates’ preferences in the workplace and explore their personal style of working. Aptitude tests, such as the Wonderlic Assessment, assess a candidate’s skill level in relation to problem-solving, using new information, and thinking critically.

Hence, pre-employment tests are designed to make the hiring process easier and to help employers gain a better understanding of whether or not a candidate could be a good fit for a particular job. 

Conclusion: Hiring the right person for better company outcomes

Although the hiring process can be a serious drain on resources, it’s a worthwhile endeavor that can pay for itself over and over if you find the right employee. Follow the steps outlined in this post, and you can enjoy an amazing team player who helps grow your company,