Advertising, screening, and interviewing are the time-honored steps of the typical hiring process. The process is also time-intensive - and it’s no wonder. After all, hiring the wrong person can cost an organization as much as three times the position’s annual salary in lost productivity, training, customer dissatisfaction, and unemployment costs.

Too often, managers make hiring mistakes along the way, such as concentrating on an applicant’s skills versus evaluating his or her talent, ignoring personality traits, and relying on hypothetical questions during the interview. While hiring is a combination of science and art, managers must adopt more effective hiring practices to improve their chances of selecting the best candidates.

A better approach: 10 helpful tips

Finding and hiring the right employee begins with better practices and tools. The following approaches are more valid and effective in today’s business world.

• Define the position’s requirements before beginning the search. Establishing a written job description up front reduces the possibility that a hiring manager will mold a position to fit a particular person’s talents instead of hiring for the existing job. Specify knowledge areas and abilities the ideal candidate should possess. The more specific the language, the better.
  
  
• Use Web technologies. Advertising for open positions on the Internet is the most widely used recruitment tool, besting even standard recruiting and employee referrals. Highly specialized positions may warrant the broader geographic coverage that Web advertising can provide versus typical print advertising. However, for positions that require more common skills, be careful not to cast too wide a net. If you’re looking for an entry-level salesperson, for example, you may not want to be inundated by resumes from all over the country.
  
  
• Conduct initial phone interviews. Managers should screen applicants to narrow down the field. Spending 20 minutes of phone time today can save hours of in-person time later.
  
  
• Ask valid, consistent, open-ended questions of candidates. Create questions to ask of all candidates. Make them specific and measurable - the kinds of questions that go well beyond yes or no answers. Ask attitude-revealing questions (“How would you manage your boss? How would you manage your staff?”), questions related to goal-setting abilities and expectations, those related to specific job skills, and those that can uncover communication skills.
  
  
• Ask about actual situations, not hypothetical ones. Ask candidates to describe particular examples of their skills, and inquire about examples of exact competencies, including teamwork. Tangible evidence of a candidate’s past contributions can be much more valuable than the answers to hypothetical questions (such as the infamous “Where do you see yourself in five years?”).
  
  
• Evaluate personality and corporate fit, as well as skill sets. Since most job turnover is the result of an inability to “fit in,” personality traits should be considered equally alongside skills. No matter how talented a person is, fitting in to a corporate culture can’t be taught or forced.
  
  
• Conduct peer-review interviews. Involve employees who will be working alongside the candidate. This encourages applicants to speak more freely and helps determine how comfortable they would be when working with their peers.
  
  
• Ask candidates to demonstrate their abilities. Ask each candidate to demonstrate a skill, solve a problem, or write or create something that clearly and concretely provides the proof that they have the ability to make necessary decisions.
  
  
• Take note of the curiosity factor. Candidates who ask lots of questions during the interview process will continue to ask questions once they’re hired. These individuals tend to be good problem-solvers.
  
  
• Fact-check résumés. Always verify credentials and fact-check résumés to ensure candidates have earned their degrees and performed the work they claim. Conduct background checks and verify references.

The right procedures for the right hire

Changing mindsets and using the right hiring tools is essential to achieving a better employment pool. And the effort affects more than just the individual work team or department; organizations with more effective hiring systems rank higher in financial performance, productivity, quality, customer satisfaction, employee satisfaction, and retention.