The right employees for a business are as important as Oxygen is to life, you just can’t survive without it. Having good or bad employees highly determine the future course of a business.
Hiring employees that are not right for a company are not just plain costly rather they can also result as a possible cause for the sidelining of a business’ growth.
Also selecting the wrong employees result in frequent turnovers that are again demoralizing for the current and right hires, besides having a souring effect on the reputation of a business.
How to Hire Right Employees for Your Business

Most of the time the main reason behind hiring wrong candidates is the short amount of time and attention dedicated to the process.
Behaviors such as making potential candidates wait for hours before the CEO finally arrive or leave them dangling on whether they are selected or not while you take your time to select, will probably make you end up with the wrong candidates as the right one will already be taken by competitors.
Mentioned below are some tips on how to go about finding the right employees for your business.
Be Very Clear About Your Needs
Before you start the hiring process, take time to evaluate what you need exactly from a potential hire, the set of skills required, the knowledge you are seeking and the required traits that will together constitute a successful performance from a candidate. Next choose questions that will enable you to instantly analyze and determine on whether the experience of the candidate is relevant to your requirements or not.
Avoid Withholding On Proper Evaluation of Candidates
Often companies tend to ignore proper background checking on the new employees and exclude talking to references about the candidate completely.
Candidates should be evaluated using behavior based tools of assessment to inquire on what the candidate has done in the past and how he and she can fit in this organization.
Have multiple people interview a single candidate and let them all give their analysis.
Apply the Test Drive Approach
Try to settle out different arrangements with your potential hire such as contract to hire basis job, temporary to permanent or working interviews. This facilitates both the employer and the candidate to find out the best fit. There are cases where a candidate may not prove to be a good interviewer however when he starts to work he or she proves to be a blast.
Similarly some people may master the art of interview however once they start working; they are simply seen spinning wheels.
Apply the Law of “Three”
The Law of Three is applied to enhance an organization’s ability to hire the right candidate for the job. According to estimation, applying these laws result in 90% better hiring decisions compared to those where the law is not applied.
This law of three simply asks you to apply all selection procedures and processes in three different ways to be sure of the outcome.
For example interview at least three candidates for a position, ask three different individuals to interview them separately, interview the shortlisted candidates on three different times, If possible try to interview them in three different places and refer three different references.
Doping all these activities at least three times allows better analysis of an individual besides buying you time to make an informed decision.
Set Up Fair Compensation Package
Paying poorly can be the biggest reason why a hire may not work out for a company as planned.
It is often seen that a candidate that is selected recently may fled to another opportunity after only weeks of joining, owing to a better compensation package.
Experts say that as far as good candidates are concerned, the economy has rebounded and candidates receive multiple job offers.
The company that pays best has better chances of being accepted by the candidate, though not in all cases.
Use the Online Forums
Companies looking out for niche talent can benefit from the online forums and develop relationships with potential candidates present online. According to the poll held by SHRM, 52% organizations today opt for online sources to target new hires.
Consult Your Employees
Irrespective of how far and wide you search for your potential candidate, ignoring the ones that can be received from within will be letting go of some of the easiest hires you can get. Employee referrals often end up as good employees for an organization as those who refer will be able to offer a realistic view of the candidate and will never recommend someone who is not a positive influence on them as well.
Apply the SWAN Formula
SWAN formula was suggested some time back by an executive recruiter, John Swan.
SWAN stands for Smart, Work hard, Ambition and Nice. Finding Smart candidates requires you to gauge the intelligence factor of an individual and the best way to do that is to ask questions.
Also analyze how many questions a candidate asks him/herself as intelligent people tend to ask more questions than average candidates. To analyze if your selected candidate will work hard, the best way is to refer to references or previous job histories to inquire on what kind of efforts have been put in earlier on to assess the capability of the employee. Ambition of a candidate can also be assess through an interview.
You can device questions that help you analyze on whether the employee is keen to have training or have been in the past and will in future seek opportunities of excelling in the profession.
Nice people are critical especially if they are to deal with customers and public, in general.
Hiring people that are likable and look nice as well, not only in terms of physical appearance but also on how they dress and carry themselves, all play a vital role in the selection process.
Incorporating all these techniques when selecting an employee for your organization will increase the chances of hiring the right individuals to 95%.
Hiring is a time consuming and costly affair besides being an important contributing factor towards the success or failure of a business and its growth.
No one would want to make mistakes in it.
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