It is nearly Christmas and many of us are closing our doors over the festive season. This time of year seems to create a time of reflection for many and often people make life changing decisions to pursue other adventures and change their employment. This presents many of us in business with the need to recruit a new team member in the new year.
Recruitment and training of new people to our business is expensive especially when we do not make the right decision. Expensive in time, effort and quite often the impact it has on the business and the team.
Scrolling through advertisements on the job boards seem to have the biggest focus on skills. Yes, skills are very important, but, is the right fit for our business the person with the best skills and experience, or should we also be looking for the person who has the right attitude and behaviour. Do we look for the person who has the ability to grow with our business and add to our team culture?
When you interview do you ask behavioural questions? Behavioural questions are questions that require your applicant to explain how they have handled a past situation, what actions they took, what were the results and what did they learn from the result. This type of question helps uncover how the applicant will behave in the future and could lead to extra questions to learn more about their experience.
Do you limit your questions to the role or do you ask questions that will help you determine how they will fit in with the team, fit with you and if this will be their next favourite role?
Do you ask questions around their past experience working within a team, the management style that brings out their best, how would their peers best describe them and one of my favourites, asking what has been their best job so far in their career and why?
Recruitment needs to be thought about before you start advertising, you need to know what team dynamics you are looking for, create your list of questions to uncover those attributes, your must haves and then start your search.
Never rush it, taking a little bit longer to get the right person will be cheaper than moving too fast with the wrong applicant.
Author
Andrea Jacks
