Intuitively, every employer knows that hiring the RIGHT people for the RIGHT job is an important organisational need. Not only you have the RIGHT people produce the desired results, the organisation also gains a reputation for hiring the RIGHT people.
Given the importance of this need – it follows that the organisation must have the RIGHT processes and talent attraction programmes. Also needed are the right types of questions to ask the potential employee during the interview process. Most employers I know have very elaborate questions and views on what they expect of their employees.
Naturally, it comes as easy to many employers during the interview process but how often are the interviews questions geared towards assessing the skills and suitability based on performance alone?
Do you also ask questions about :
- Employees’ likes and dislikes in terms of work. For eg, he may be extremely good at writing proposals but he has had enough and prefers meeting people.
- Employees’ preferred working style. I know of some very talented people who need alot of feedback before they are willing to continue. Can you match your style with theirs?
- Employees preferred work culture. If you company is hiring to look for a talent to change the culture, make sure the talent is ready to take on that role of a change agent.
- Employees’ model of teamwork. This is a soft skill that does not go hand in hand with every capable talent you are seeking to hire. If you are building a team and teamwork is critical – you have to make it a point to understand whether the potential employee is up to your expectations, through your questions which you must plan ahead.
- Employees’ longer term aspirations. If you cannot fulfill the mid to longer term aspirations of the employees – you know that you can lose this hiree after you have hired and trained him. So do not overlook this in your rush to hire a talent to fill an immediate need.
The most common pitfall is the employers, in their rush to fill an immediate need so as not to miss business opportunities, end up finding talents with skills to match the job – but overlook the other needs of the hirees. If the mismatch of the other needs is large – the employer can soon be repeating the hiring process!
Contact Tan Teck Kim if you wish to know more about Building Your Teams, through getting the right talents. We provide training in Singapore, Malaysia, China and Asia.
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