Hiring good hands for your company

If a job candidate looks good on paper and looks good in the interview, one would naturally assume this candidate would be a good fit for the job. While it sounds logical, it doesn't always work out that way.

Too much faith in resumes and interviews can lead to bad hiring decisions, with negative repercussions, including low morale, high turnover, and the high cost of starting the hiring process all over again. An unfortunate truth is that sometimes candidates are not entirely honest on their resumes. In a survey conducted by the Society of Human Resource Management, 53 percent of the human resource (HR) professionals who participated said they discovered false information when checking the references of applicants. This underscores the importance of HR professionals going through a rigorous screening process to identify and hire top talent.

Look Beyond the Resume

Let's say the candidate being interviewed is honest on his or her resume, and let's assume that, after a couple of interviews, people in the office are impressed. Too often, this is where the hiring process ends, but the wrong person may be hired. There could be any number of reasons why this is so. Maybe the candidate had the experience, but he came from a company with a different corporate culture and will have trouble adjusting. Or, while the candidate's resume was impressive, she bristles at her new manager's leadership style, thus performing at a lower level than expected. As many HR professionals and managers have come to discover, a resume and professional interview simply do not accurately predict a candidate's success in a new job.

Individuals are complex, as are the positions they are interviewing to fill. While factors such as education, skill sets, and experience are often shown on resumes, they do not describe the entire person and his or her ability to do the job well. It takes digging deeper. For example, does the applicant prefer working in a group or alone? How does he or she handle criticism? Is she used to more work or less?

Companies have come to realize that the time and money spent on a properly conducted preemployment screening program can help expedite the hiring process and ensure a safe, secure, and productive workplace. Let's face it, whether we like it or not, the future trend in business will require the HR professional to absorb much of the responsibility of employee risk management. HR professionals can craft a companywide hiring management process that can aid the manager in learning more about the candidate before hiring him or her, thus reducing any adverse effects down the road. These checks include criminal and background checks, objective behavioral testing, a formalized behavioral interviewing process, and extensive reference checks. So, you ask, does an HR professional really need to know all of that? Can we just make a hiring decision without all that time and expense? Sure. But "gut feeling" hires and "what you see on paper" hires are much like flipping a coin and can lead to cataclysmic losses.

Add Criminal and Background Checks

Background and criminal checks are absolutely essential in the hiring process today for obvious reasons: workplace safety, "at-risk" behavior, propensity for theft, sexual harassment, alcohol and/or drug abuse, falsified employment applications, substandard driving records, and negligent hiring lawsuits. It is common knowledge that corporations lose billions of dollars each year hiring candidates with criminal records or deviant behavior traits. Much can be gleaned through a comprehensive reference check. However, it's important to keep in mind that many former employers of substandard employees are very cautious when sharing prior performance information, fearing lawsuits if they divulge too much. For this reason, past disciplinary issues often remain undiscovered until it is too late.

Employers can minimize these risks considerably by working with a qualified screening provider whose job it is to protect businesses against losses associated with a wrong hiring decision. When you consider the sheer volume of applications that must be sorted through, filed, and stored, it is no wonder that we want to get a position filled as soon as possible. Many times, when an HR professional finds an applicant whose resume is perfect, whose presence and appearance are seamless, and whose interview is impressive, the urge to cut corners at this stage in the game is overwhelming!. You are not only assessing the possible contributions of an applicant, but their potential employee 'costs' in terms of low morale, lateness, absenteeism, accidents, insurance claims, and turnover, as well as possible theft, violence, or lawsuits.