A Guide To Finding Candidates Who Fit Well In Your Organization

By Jason McClain | August 24, 2015 | 0 Comment

We put a lot of effort into cultivating our culture and picking the right candidates for the McClain Concepts team. In fact, every employee is required to take a Strengths Finder test before a final hiring decision is made, to make sure he or she will mesh well with the rest of the team. Throughout the years, I have learned how important it is to hire the right people. Thus, I wanted to provide this brief 5-step guide to finding candidates who fit well in your organization.

Step 1:  Conduct reference and background checks.

This may seem like a “no brainer,” but you might be surprised how many people fluff up their resumes. Make sure to ask for professional as well as personal reference, at least one being a previous supervisor.

Step 2: Make sure the candidate has relevant experience.

I can’t stress this enough, especially if you work in a fast-paced environment, you need someone who can dive in and begin work without too much training. However, with some training, a person without a lot of drive and passion can sometimes excel beyond that of another with more experience. This brings us to Step 3.

Step 3: Look beyond what looks good on paper.

It is easy enough for a candidate to look up resume examples and piece together their own with the right terminology and skill set. A candidate’s personality is just as important, especially to jobs that require strong social skills. Take note of their gestures and posture while being asked certain questions. After the initial interview, look at how they interact on any public social media profiles or pages to see if their personality seems consistent with the one presented to you during the interview.

Step 4: Stay away from cookie cutter questions.

Google and some other companies are known for their off-the-wall questions during interviews. There are many candidates who research typical interview questions and rehearse their answers. Inquiries such as “describe a time you had to overcome a problem” or “describe your previous accomplishments” are pretty common. Ask candidates a question that can’t be easily found on the web, but speaks to their creativity and problem solving capabilities.

Step 5:  Let the potential candidate speak more than you.

Open ended questions allow you to gain more insight into a candidate’s thoughts and feelings than closed ended questions. Additionally, take note of if a candidate has questions for you? Questions like what a “typical day” or the culture is like show that the candidate cares about where they work and wants to find the right fit for him or her as well.

Even with following these steps, one of the best pieces of advice I can give you is to have multiple people on your team interview the candidate. If you are trying to make sure someone is a good fit for your team, how better to decide than to have team involvement in the process? Each individual on your team will be looking for and notice qualities or skills that you may not. If three or more people agree the person is a good fit, this is a pretty good sign!

0 Comments