How to Avoid Bad Hires

How to Avoid Bad HiresHow to Avoid Bad HiresNo matter how seasoned a manager you are, you know youre taking a chance every time you add a new person to your team. In todays employment market, even if youre able to find someone you feel is a good candidate, sometimes people unexpectedly turn into schwimmbad hires after they sign on the dotted line.The cost of bad hires can involve a damaged reputation - for you, personally, and for the company. Not only is there the issue of wasted time and resources, but also the staffing crisis created if everyone is stretched too thin to accommodate for a recruitment mistake. Operations and customer service suffer, and morale is dampened.And the costs of making a bad hire are more real than you may think. More than 80 percent of business owners and managers have brought on the wrong person, according to a survey.A major cause of bad hires is the difficulty of predicting whether new employees will fit in with your corporate culture. Most hiring man agers can only base their decision on words on a resume, a relatively short in-person interview, and perhaps reference checks or some internet sleuthing behind the scenes. For such a big decision, these safeguards are not always enough.Anticipating how well new hires will fit in requires a lot of work. And thats one reason why staffing firms exist.START HIRING NOWRecruitment agencies 101Staffing specialists have the connections, skills, tools and experience to help you avoid bad hires. Thats because staffing is all they do, and evaluating company culture fit is something they focus on.Who? Staffing specialists can help you when it comes to hiring. They look in detail at your particular needs and help you decide if its better to hire a temporary, part-time or full-time employee. They can also explain the benefits of a temp-to-hire strategy and help determine if thats a good option for your business. An experienced staffing firm will do a thorough assessment and propose a smart staffi ng solution.What? Give staffing specialists a list of your requirements and let them help you with the hiring, including posting job ads, reviewing resumes, conducting interviews and administering skills tests when necessary. At the end, a recruitment firm will present only those job candidates who they feel you should consider.Why? The most knowledgeable recruitment specialists have the personal and technical tools to properly measure the capabilities of candidates. They know how to identify red flags and also how to look beyond your requirements, if necessary, to find someone who may not have the years of experience you asked for but has the potential to learn quickly on the job.When? Recruiters spend much of their time going through resumes and meeting with job seekers. They have established processes to evaluate candidates and will come up with a list of possible hires much faster than if you do it yourself.Specialization is key to avoiding bad hiresSpecialized staffing firms fo cus on a specific field, such as accounting, administrative, legal, marketing or IT, and know the skills required for each area and how to evaluate them. That means they can provide more suitable matches than a generalist staffing firm.Staffing specialists are also proactive. They network extensively in one field and build lists of pre-vetted candidates. They have the knowledge and the latest technology to pull professionals from this pool who match your particular needs, and help you avoid the cost of bad hires.