Finding and hiring a new employee for your company is never an easy feat. There are a lot of things to contemplate in order to select the best candidate for the company’s future success. Quite often employers are drawn to the candidate that has that special “sparkle” to their aura, but that doesn’t necessarily mean the candidate is the most qualified. With the pressure of finding the right candidate in order to prevent wasted money on hiring and training another candidate in just a few short months to replace the wrong employee you hired the first time, seeing the right one in front of you may be hard.
Around 92 percent of job seekers say they feel interview anxiety, so it is safe to bet that many of those are great candidates that let their anxiety get the best of them. How can you tell when the candidate that is the strongest on paper is the right option when compared to the candidate that outshines the competition?
Can the candidate overcome their weaknesses?
Some people just don’t do well in interviews no matter how much they prepare or know they are perfectly qualified for the position. If they simply lack in their interviewing skills but otherwise are strong candidates, take their weakness as something that can be improved and will not have any effect on their actual job performance.
Mistakes that can be overlooked as simple slipups:
- overdressing for an interview
- forgetting a name
- forgetting to silence a cellphone
- trying to impress too hard
- negative remarks about former coworkers and supervisors.
- bringing up salary immediately
- not being prepared for the interview in any way
- not researching the basics of the company
Is your gut leaving you feeling uneasy?
Hesitating because a candidate is over/under qualified or because they make small mistakes is understandable. Having a sense that the candidate is not a good fit for the company is another issue you have to consider. Mark Zuckerberg follows the rule of whether or not he would want to work with the candidate as a way of weighing the pros and cons. A candidate that is overambitious in how they answer questions may be overbearing in the workplace and would not be a good fit. However, their over-ambition may be a sign of their eagerness to be a valuable part of the team. Trust your gut reaction to how they speak and the body language they portray. Their true personality will shine through no matter how hard a candidate may try to mask them.
In order to ensure you are finding the right employee for your company, ask yourself these ten questions:
- Is the candidate adaptive? The market is constantly changing, so the needs of your company will be changing as well. You need to make sure you have employees that can keep up. Look for examples from the candidate of how they grow, shift, and evolve to workplace change.
- Do they ask engaging and thoughtful questions? A candidate that is able to ask a good question proves that they did their research on the company before the interview and are able to listen and think on their feet.
- Are they curious? The right candidate will want to know more, learn more, and be excited about the opportunity to do so. A candidate that shows this desire will be easier to train and less likely to make major mistakes because of an unwillingness to ask for help.
- Can they spot patterns in distinct information? Employees should be able to see what is happening in the market synthetically while being able to communicate it with others.
- Are they a team player? Collaboration is a growing trend in the workplace, so you need to make sure you have employees that can excel in that type of environment. Cooperation and productivity in a group are important qualities for all your employees to have, because just one rotten apple can spoil the bunch.
- Are they resourceful? Being able to do more with less is a new skill that many companies are looking for as the world attempts to downsize. Wastefulness is not tolerated by many companies, simply because cutting back makes a difference. Look for a candidate that is willing to use both sides of their Post-its.
- Are they enthusiastic about others? Hiring employees that encourage and care for each other will have a tremendous effect on your company. Positive people generate positive interactions and more productive energy in their work.
- Do they admit mistakes? Many people believe that mistakes are a sign of weakness and lack of ability. Now we are learning through new research that mistakes have to be made in order to learn. Find a candidate that can admit to three failures and what they learned from the experiences.
- Do they enjoy learning? The best candidate will be one that treats learning as a passion where they collect all the skills and new knowledge that they can.
- Is this someone you want on your team? In the end, you are hiring the person, not the resume. No candidate will have exactly everything you are looking for, so take a look at who they are as a whole to decide if they are the right person for the job and for the company. Consider their values and habits.
See the following articles for more information:
- Why Recruiters Need to Think Like Marketers to Find the Right Candidates
- Cheat Sheet: 50 Questions to Ask Job Applicants during Interviews
- Should You Hire for a Position Internally or Use an Outside Hire?
- Don’t Be Fooled by the Extrovert Ideal: 3 Tips for Effective Hiring
- How to Hire Interns Who Can Be Full Time Employees
