How do you know you have made the right decision?

Chatting to a client yesterday, we talked about recruitment and the decisions you make over a few meetings. We agreed it can be a bit of a game sometimes. You meet someone once, twice or maybe three times and then you make a decision which will have a profound effect on your business and the candidate.

It’s not just about filling a role – everyone you add to your business, no matter how senior, will affect the equilibrium of the team or the whole company.

You want that effect to be positive, you want the person to be with you for a long time and to make an invaluable contribution to work and to play.

Sometimes it just doesn’t work, a personality trait not evident in interview could be catastrophic for your team and your clients. How someone presents themselves at interview can be vastly different in real life.

The person who says I am punctual, energetic and passionate in the interview could turn up late, be lethargic and lazy. Human nature often means that we give people the benefit of the doubt, particularly in this sector where we are candidate short, so months can go by before you realise you really have a problem. At this stage you will have invested time, training and money.

References don’t help, at this stage people can only confirm dates so are almost pointless, but should be taken as a check – you never know.

So what can you do to safeguard against a bad decision ?

• Make sure your hiring managers are trained to interview
• Ensure everyone involved in the recruitment process is on the same page
• Include your harshest critic in the process (every company has one!)
• Have a set of culture test questions prepared that you ask everyone
• Do background checks – LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter – it’s easy to find out what people are like.

Remember a probation period is there for a reason, so that you and your new colleague can try each other on for size. Be clear about your expectations and if there are traits that you observe which don’t match your expectations communicate it quickly.

Decision making isn’t easy and sometimes things slip through the net. You have to be confident and trust yourself, but at the same time recognise when it’s wrong and fix it immediately.

For more information on all our recruitment services, including our training packages, please get in touch.