If you’’ve had trouble hiring the right person for the job, you’re not alone. The best recruiting firms in the world know the cycle. They call it “hiring on skill, firing on fit”.
Why do we so often hire the wrong person for the job?
Obviously any candidate is going to need the necessary skills to do the job, so it’s easy to understand why many hiring managers prioritize skills to the exclusion of the candidate’s other qualities. Another reason is that skills are measurable and more objective, and therefore easier to base an important hiring decision on. Some candidate’s skills include selling themselves very effectively — and they end up an imperfect fit. One final reason hiring managers hire on skill even when they know the fit is less than ideal is that their staffing needs are urgent or their applicant response has been less than stellar. But if you’ve experienced hiring someone who looked great on paper and fit poorly in your organization, you know this practice is costing you money and resources. Here are some ways to break free from the cycle.

Last year, we saw a powerful shift in the communications industry, particularly in human resources and recruitment. Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn continued to grow and benefit the HR communications industry by reaching passive and active candidates. Job seekers, already active on these sites, were drawn to branded employer pages that advertised open positions and content broadcasted through blogs, microblogs and status updates.

We need to hire employees, but we’re so busy working in the business to replace the employee(s) who just left that we don’t have time to recruit. Sound familiar?

For many businesses having to recruit means that they are or soon will be short-staffed. In this situation, many small business owners find themselves struggling as they are suddenly drawn back or further into the daily operations of the business while simultaneously trying to run the business and of course, recruit quality candidates for the job.

If you are a recruiting leader or recruiter who is constantly on the lookout for new recruiting trends, practices, and tools, you have surely already heard of QR codes.
QR codes are a second-generation barcode that allows potential candidates to quickly and directly access supporting materials and websites using only a camera equipped smartphone. QR codes have many uses, but are most often used to direct target audiences to online content that cannot be easily conveyed in print.
You can of course provide a printed URL, but if you have ever tried to enter a long URL into a mobile browser, chances are you wouldn’t do it again.

Companies are increasingly using social media in recruiting, a trend known as social recruiting. The 3 main platforms to leverage for sourcing candidates are LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter. Finding candidates won’t happen overnight, though. You must set up your profiles and work to build a community before you broadcast job openings. Start early, build your network and then leverage that network.

I know that there are some folks who don’t believe a job description is necessary anymore and of course, that is the decision of the organization to make. I do believe in job descriptions – and let me tell you why. A job description helps a business in understanding what the needs are of a particular position. What are the functional responsibilities and skills required in the position? How will you know what a reasonable amount of pay should be if you don’t have some sort of understanding of the duties? How would you classify the role? Who would the person report to and who would be responsible to manage the incumbent? For that matter, how will you hire someone into a position that has no description? How would you construct a set of interview questions that would be relevant to the role?

To attract your future skilled and productive employees, make your first impression count. No matter who you hire, you’ll be investing resources, training, time, and money, so sourcing skilled candidates is the first step to getting a solid employee ROI. Solid candidates looking for a progressive organization, and meaningful work experiences, will overlook opportunities if you’ve failed to provide them with important information-qualitative information about who you are as an organization, your culture, values, offerings, and how you treat employees. People are looking for more than ‘just a job’.

More and more small businesses are popping up due to the economic downturn. People are realizing that they need to become more reliant on themselves to be gainfully employed. As these startup businesses increase, there will be some challenges that must be considered. One of many challenges will possibly be in hiring a strong and stable group of employees. The reality is that you will probably not be able to compete with larger employers that offer higher salaries; benefit packages; stock options; flexible work-weeks, etc. For a while, folks are going to try to hold out for these positions and may very well turn you down.

Finding the right person for your job isn’t easy. If it were we’d all be happy and businesses would be humming along contentedly without any conflict whatsoever because we’d all be living in the fantasy world as illustrated in the satirical movie, “The Stepford Wives”. So, we need to be honest here and figure out what you can realistically do to ensure you find the right person. What I am going to suggest may sound to some of you like it’s too much work – but my years of experience have taught me that doing the work up front will save you ten-fold as you begin to move forward and people are indeed doing what it is you hired them to do.

A couple of years ago, UBC conducted a study where 6,000 mock resumes were sent to employers in 20 job categories throughout the Greater Toronto Area. While resumes were tailored to the job and showed similar educational background and experience, those with English-sounding last names were 40% more likely to receive interview requests than those with non-English names.