Hiring a new employee can be an amazing experience, but it can also be costly. With each new hire, you’re bringing someone onboard who may be with you for the next few decades, but this person may also cost your company thousands of dollars in the short-term in costs that include insurance, unemployment, training, and other benefits.
As a result, you’ll need to employ the best habits when selecting candidates to join your team. Hiring the wrong person may end up resulting in thousands of dollars in lost revenue, especially if that wrong candidate is not able to perform at a level which your business requires.
RELATED: Why Google’s Hiring Practices are Ahead of The Curve
Keeping With Company Culture
One of the most important parts of the selection process is deciding whether or not the candidate fits in with the company culture. If you have a very rigid culture, an extrovert might not be the best choice, while if you have a very loose and open culture, an introvert might not be the best choice.
Obviously, personalities can shift and be fluid, so no hard-and-fast judgment calls should be made, but by and large, personalities tend to remain static across the board. Therefore, look for candidates who fit the profile of the ideal applicant … someone with whom you would like to work with each and every day.
The Cost of a New Hire
When bringing on someone new, there is always the potential that he or she won’t work out. It might take as little as an hour or it might take years to discover this, but when you do, you might now realize just how much money has been invested in the employee.
Training a new employee might not only take dollars, but it can also result in lost productivity from other employees and your business in general. In addition, benefits paid to an employee who doesn’t work out could end up costing your business additional dollars that are wasted in the end. Depending upon your company and its expenses, thousands of dollars may become wasted if an employee doesn’t work out.
No One Can Predict the Future
The difficult part of the hiring process is that no one can predict the future. Whether you’re a CEO or a hiring manager, candidates can be very convincing when they want the job. Unqualified applicants can breeze through an interview by using false data, and you’ll only find out that they lied once they have the job and have been working for a while.
By this point, they could have already cost your company a substantial amount of money. The goal? Seek out candidates with qualifying skills who are invested in the future of the company.
To do this, employ rigorous screening processes, but don’t make things unduly difficult. Candidates need to be able to show their strengths without being burdened, but they also need to be able to demonstrate their competencies while proving that they will be a benefit to your organization.
What sorts of questions might employers ask to disqualify unfit candidates? Should companies look to Google’s hiring process as the gold standard?
Andrew Rusnak is an author who writes on topics that include business development and career counseling.