How to hire the right people for your team in 2021

Hiring the right people for your team is both a science and an art. You might have a very clear idea about the qualifications and experience you require for a role, but how do you find the right person among the many candidates with similar credentials? It requires rigorous enquiry, intuition, experimentation and knowledge of the key areas to consider.

There are three significant things to consider if you are to find the right people for your team in 2021: competency, commitment and compatibility with the other members of your team. Here, Arctic Shores will look at each aspect in depth.

Assess competency

Finding someone fit for the role, for example, who will carry their weight and make valuable contributions of both knowledge and skills, is the first thing you need to consider. However, these things can be hard to judge until someone is already established in the role, especially if you only rely on conventional hiring methods (CVs, references and interviews). This is why many businesses have turned to psychometric testing to filter out unsuitable applicants early on.

Although traditional self-report psychometric tests allow for candidates to represent themselves more favourably by selecting the answers that they deduce will be the ‘right answers’ the company is looking for, there is now new technology which has created a ‘new standard’ for psychometric tests. This form of testing aims to accurately capture ‘real candidate behaviour’ and check it against company requirements. By using new psychometric technology such as that developed by Arctic Shores – which assesses behaviour and reactions rather than strategised responses – you will be able to eliminate unsuitable candidates faster, discover unexpected talent and make your hiring process more time and cost-efficient.

Assess compatibility

While modern psychometric tests can give you a head start in finding the best candidate for the role, they can’t tell you how well people will get on together. Looking at character, communication and potential connectors will help you to get a sense of how well a candidate might fit in with your team and company culture.

When considering the character of a candidate, the human resources and development consultants at People Business suggest that key areas of personality to assess are:

• Everyday behaviour (e.g. how fixed/flexible an individual is ‘normally’)
• Derailing behaviours under stress (e.g. risk aversion)
• Underlying motivations/values/drivers (e.g. need for approval)

Looking at how well someone can communicate under ordinary as well as stressful situations is also an essential avenue to explore since you need people who will be able to talk about issues and not grow defensive or aggressive. Good communication skills are, in fact, far more import than any other quality when it comes to working well with colleagues, so be sure to ask about how they handled situations such as making a mistake or a disagreement with a colleague.

Finally, it is also extremely important to explore how well people can connect with colleagues. This is where the interview process plays a key part. Ensure that, once you have narrowed down your candidates, you get them meeting other members of the team as part of the interview process. Consider it as an experiment to observe how well they connect with the team and – this is very important – listen to your staff’s feedback. This will increase the likelihood of finding the best candidate, and also ensuring that other team members will welcome them in.

Assess commitment

The most annoying and costly thing recruiters have to deal with is job candidates who aren’t serious about the role. These candidates might seem to be perfect on paper and will often do an excellent job of convincing you that they are deeply invested in getting the role, then at the last moment – when you offer them the job or they are due to start – they decide they’re not interested.

No matter how well a candidate is looking on the competency and compatibility fronts, if their commitment is not there, you may find yourself repeating the hiring process before long. To judge a candidate’s commitment, you will need to ensure that you ask the right kinds of questions in their interview. To help with this, Coburg Banks recruitment experts have put together a list of key questions to ask, such as:

• “So, what aspects of the role do you think you’ll like? And which will you dislike?”
• “So why do you think this job would be different/better than your current job?”
• “What did you like about your last job?”
• “What do you know about the company?”

Also, remember that commitment to the role may actually involve a candidate bringing something different and unexpected to the role. Look for people who have ideas for how they can improve the role or help to take the business further. These people are likely to become a valuable asset as your business grows.

More on HR and staff management and hiring for your small business.