If you’ve ever read “The Purloined Letter,” you know that amateur detective C. Auguste Dupin finds the object in the most obvious place. Oftentimes the obvious gets overlooked and can become a problem, as with these 3 obstacles that can reduce your chances of hiring the best people. Here’s the list and how to overcome them:
- The job description: Job descriptions are like dictionary definitions that help you understand a term, but don’t necessarily reflect the totality of the concept. (Think “marriage” or “cuisine”.) What goes on and into a job is often far more than what the Employee Manual says and sticking too closely to the job description can cause you and your company to miss out on excellent candidates. A better method (what we like to call “Sharpline’s modus operandi“) is to expand the job description beyond the position to the actual role (LINK: To Hire, Make Your Job Definition “100”) or base the candidate search more on skill set than dry “job=related needs” (LINK: Don’t Look at Job Title: Look at Skill Set).
- The established network: If your company has been hiring people for over 6 months, it’s very likely that it has created a network of resources to help find good candidates. Over time, this network may solidify into a routine channel that essentially loses the reach and flexibility you need to locate and identify top candidates. What we suggest is looking at the fringes of your network, to the “weak ties” that you may have not touched before in order to generate new types of leads that can have unexpected returns for your hiring searches. (LINK: “Distant Network” Beats “Direct Referrals” When It Comes to Filling Jobs)
- The company’s mental filters: There is no doubt that an organization needs to create routines and systems in order to maximize effectiveness and develop efficiency, However, what becomes routine will also tend to become stagnant and that might be the problem with the hiring process. Your company may be in a rut when it comes to bringing in the best and the brightest available talent. If that seems the case, it’s a good time to take a close look at what filters are being used to hire new people and question whether they need to be adjusted, expanded or eliminated. The idea is to create a more encompassing, 360-degree vision of what your company can look for in new hires. You can do that in-house, or use a placement agency with a similar modus operandi. (Hint, hint.)
Help yourself find the best candidates by moving past these three obstacles, bringing in the best people that can galvanize your company in unexpected ways.
By Gil C. Schmidt, Sharpline Contributor
