SMB Recruitment Tips: Hire Right the First Time

Bringing in people who will contribute to the overall performance and reputation of your business is one of the most important decisions that you will make.

Hiring the wrong person, or someone who doesn’t stay long or whose performance isn’t up to scratch, might be relatively easy to recover from for a larger business, but for a small to medium-sized business, the impact of getting it wrong can be significant, not only financially, but in opportunity costs and possibly team morale, depending on the circumstances.

From just a financial perspective, it is reasonable to assume the cost of a mishire is the area of 50% to 60% of their yearly salary, at the minimum.

Some of the common hiring mistakes that small to medium-sized businesses make include the following:

Hiring the friend of a friend
They don’t ask their employees for recommendations
They hire someone they like
The interview is an informal chat
They have unrealistic expectations
They take candidates at face value
They hire too quickly or too slowly

Fortunately, there are several steps any business can take to significantly improve its hiring process and decisions; the single best thing you can do is screen, test, and interview, in that order.

Conduct a 10-to-15-minute telephone screen to confirm key pay and conditions of employment, the candidate’s motivation, and whether they meet the technical requirements of the role.

If the candidate is deemed good enough, then refer them to Fermion for profiling and testing.

You then have significant data on the candidate to decide if a face-to-face interview is warranted and worth the time and resources. If you decide to interview, you then use the screening data, test results, and their CV to complement your interview.

Having all that data gives the interview panel far more material to work with than you would ever have if you just called the candidate in for an interview.

That 3-step process (screen, test and interview) can be done by any size business, and it can’t help but improve your hiring decisions. Even if you are interested in a friend of a friend, still put them through the same process.

The Bottom Line

If you are tired of hiring the wrong person, or you want to build a high-performing team, you need data about each candidate before you interview; use the test results to complement your interview.

A typical battery of tests that covers IQ, EQ, and personality will ask the candidate over 200 questions. Imagine using that data to enhance your interview.

Telephone screening, then psychometric testing, and then only interview the good candidates. Try this approach, and your hiring decisions will improve significantly.