Are you an employer who has decided to expand the operations of your company? In that case, you may have decided to increase the number of employees to improve the scale of operations.
Recruitment of a new employee requires you to be vigilant. This is because you are going to trust him or her with the knowledge required for running the company. Consequently, it is important that the new recruit is trustworthy.
Moreover, you will need to collaborate with the new employee as per the requirement of operations of the company. It is important that they should be on the same wavelength as their colleagues. This would ensure that there is proper co-ordination between the team, and reduce the possible chances of any friction.
In this article, we shall discuss the five main factors that you need to keep in mind while recruiting a new employee to your organization.
5 Factors to keep in Mind
- Education and Past work experience
Checking the academic credentials of an individual is a good indicator of how hard working the person is. While it should not be the absolute criteria, it nevertheless helps if the candidate has a relatively good academic profile. This helps to establish whether the person is sincere in whatever work related activity they pursue.
The degree that a person has pursued in their graduation, or in their postgraduation, would also help in classifying the person according to their domain of knowledge. For instance, if a candidate has a degree in finance or law, they can be allocated a suitable profile accordingly.
Past work experience is useful for determining the interest level of the candidate, and also for establishing how adept they are in their chosen work. The candidate should be asked about challenges that they faced in the previous company, or previous organisations. They should also be asked how they dealt with the situations. Based on this, the candidate can be assessed regarding their response to unique challenges. - Personality
The personality of the candidate should be compatible with the overall culture of the company. The nature of the candidate should be such that the existing employees find him or her co-operative.
Each company establishes a certain hierarchy or process, regarding the chain of instruction. For instance, certain companies will allow an employee to only follow the instructions as issued by the reporting manager. Whereas, other companies might be more flexible, and they might allow greater input regarding the final product from the workers, even if they are not part of the upper management.
There are various ways of judging the personality of the person. For instance, they might be introverted or extroverted; they might have a proactive approach in co-ordinating with colleagues or vice versa. The point is that the overall working culture of the team should not be disturbed.
3. Skill Set
The most practical question for a company, while recruiting a new candidate is, of course, how skilled they are in what they do. Skills are essentially what determine employability in the market. A company is run by employees specializing in diverse skill sets - such as technical, legal, finance, marketing, and so on.
Skills can be of various types - core skills as well as soft skills. For instance, the core skill of a person who has graduated in computer science engineering might be that they are adept at coding. Conversely, the main skill of a content creator would be that they have an imaginative streak, and are good story tellers.
On the other hand, communication skills also make quite a difference. A person might be quite adept in a certain profile. However, if they are unable to communicate their ideas, or their doubts with clarity to their teammates, it would be a major hindrance to the functioning of the team. This would also be a challenge if the employee has to work in collaboration with the sales or marketing team.
4. Learning and growth potential
While it is strategic to look for candidates who have vast experience in their field, this can at times be a double edged sword. For instance, a candidate who has approached a certain problem, or a certain profile only from a specific angle will get accustomed to dealing with the situation in a similar manner. They might not remain flexible and innovative when it comes to dealing with specific situations. This is because they have been conditioned to behave in a certain manner by their training.
Consequently, the recruiter must also look to hire employees who are eager to learn on the job. Each company occupies a unique niche in the market, whether it is a legacy company, or a startup. Working with the new company should represent a learning opportunity for the new candidate. This is also reflected in the questions that they ask about the company, or about the job profile during their interview.
Finally, while some candidates might not have substantial experience - they might demonstrate high levels of potential. This is a characteristic of their youthful energy and dynamism. It is always healthy to integrate a certain number of younger candidates with higher growth potential. This is for they would bring fresh ideas and creativity to the operation of the company.
5. Commitment Levels
A new recruit will have to be trained by the company in a specific profile. This would involve not just financial expenditure, but also considerable effort on the part of colleagues, as well as upper management. Consequently, it is important to go for a candidate who is willing to offer their commitment to the company in the long run.
Such a relationship is bound to be mutually beneficial for both the employee as well as the employer. It is known that scaling an organization requires time and patience. Thus, the company should be able to reap the rewards of investing in the employee.
Conclusion
When a new job is advertised on a social media portal, or in the newspapers, there can be hundreds, if not thousands of applicants for the job. However, not all of them will be the right candidate for the job. It is important that the interests of the company are placed above all in selecting the best candidate.
Consequently, in making that judgement, the recruiter needs to have some objective criteria in order to judge the employees while taking interviews. If not, they run the risk of recruiting candidates based on arbitrary and subjective judgement. This might turn out to have unhealthy repercussions if the wrong candidate is chosen. Hence, we hope that the five aforementioned criteria will help you in making a well-reasoned choice.
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