Selecting the "right fit" for your company

Right now, we can't escape the news and headlines of more people being laid off, the stock market nightmares, and the economy creeping closer and closer to the days of the great depression. If you're like most, you want to run, hide, and come back out when this whole thing is better. While this doesn't sound like a bad idea at times, the truth is right now is the time to fight and to make sure that you have "the right people on the bus" to lead your company through the tough times.

Not all companies are letting people go and in fact many companies that I work with are actually hiring employees on a weekly basis. The smart companies realize that in these tough times it is more important then ever to hire the right employee for not only the job, but for the company as a whole. If you are like most business owners/leaders or HR professionals, you realize that the resume and the interview only give you so much information about the candidate........and there is a really good chance that some of the information is a bit exaggerated. So how do you ensure that the people you bring into your company have more then just the knowledge of the business? How do you make sure they have the skills, behaviors, and even the values to be productive and last in your company? You must begin with a simple benchmark of the job and then use a proven and validated assessment to make sure that the person you're paying has what it takes to perform.

When you think about the costs associated with advertising for the job, the time, resources, and money you are losing interviewing candidate after candidate trying to find that diamond in the rough, you will start to see the dollars add up. Once you think you've found the "right person", you still have to work with him/her to develop the skills required for the job. You have to hope that their work behaviors match with their bosses and colleagues, and even if you get all that right, how do you know that the type of work they will be required to do day in and day out is going to provide them with the type of motivation and rewards that are required to make them stay on long term? If they quit early, you're right back to square one and all that money you spent is not only wasted, but you're about to start the same process over again.

So, how do you avoid these costly hiring mistakes? You move past the traditional interview and resume screening and begin benchmarking and assessing your candidates before you make that final decision. There are numerous assessments out there that can help you do this, some are better then others, but making the decision is guaranteed to improve the quality of employees you bring on.