Traditional hiring is outdated now where HR use to line up candidates and ask them to meet hiring manager after asking some routine questions like “Tell me about yourself” or “Why you want to change your job?” etc. HR is now playing a vital role in ensuring that person getting hired should be fit for organization along with technical fitment. HR need to ensure that person hired should also be evaluated on fitment with organization culture to avoid early attrition. Organizations have understand cost of hiring wrong candidate now, who do not fit to company, hence there is always a huge pressure on HR to ensure hiring of a right fit candidate.
Fitment to company culture
Every organization has a culture which is different from other. As HR professional, we should know about our culture well and kind of people who will fit into it. It can be small thing as working hours and kind of flexible work hours which company provides or most important one like career growth path an employee can get in organization. HR should be sensitive about fitment of a candidate with its organization culture.
Let’s say, a candidate who has been working in 5 days a week pattern will feel hesitant to join a company which is 6 days a week pattern. Candidate has a life style based on 5 days a week working and suddenly when it changes, he feels un comfort and try to look for change.
If your company culture is driven by outcome and not by number of hours a person spends in office or you may ask a person to work after office hours due to global presence for video calls etc, then you need to see how much a candidate is comfortable with all this.
If your organization believes in capabilities and not in number of years a person spends in your organization for promotion then you need to ensure that candidate should be motivated to give results and his past experience should reflect the same. Candidate who have grown in same company, meaning being promoted are the one who have proved their capability to deliver. So you can see that angle.
HR should keep their conversation in line to understand fitment of candidate to organization culture. HR needs to take a cautious decision after conversation with candidate. Not necessary that all the aspects should match but no negotiation on critical one.
Profile match is critical
Now a day, a HR professional is successful only when he knows about business and its processes. HR should know what a business unit does and various job profiles present in that business unit. Also what are deliverable of a job profile. This way HR will know what kind of person will fit into.
HR should ensure that candidate is fit for the profile and kind of work person need to do. HR should double check with candidate and ensure profile match. A candidate may agree to do work which he has never done just to grab the offer but HR should identify interest level of candidate before taking final decision.
Recently, we were looking for a person in IT who can take up both desktop and networking level assignment. I come across many candidates who agreed to do the job but during conversation with them I have felt that they actually wanted to go to networking and less interested in desktop level work. Reason was quite simple, they feel that they have already crossed the stage of desktop level engineering. Fair enough.
Then we decided to find a candidate who is in desktop engineering and have networking certification and looking to make career in networking field. Such candidates will fit to the profile as they have no hesitation in handling desktop level work and learn networking together.
Candidate’s expectation from company is utmost important
It’s not about what a company want, it is also about what a candidate wants. You must have come across many cases where candidate say no to company due to various reason. It can due to profile mismatch, salary expectation, working hours etc. Hence HR should always ask what does a candidate wants from his new job assignment and company. Accordingly HR should take his call. Respect candidate expectation.
Trust me, a good hiring takes time but it is worthy spending time. There are occasions when a candidate is selected from technical rounds but got rejected on HR front. Do not be in hurry to fill your positions to meet your deadline to hire but ensure that hiring should be right fit.
I would suggest you to do a simple analysis to find out hiring quality. You can make data showing employee left in a particular duration after joining. If number of employees leaving within 6 months are higher- this means that there is something wrong in your hiring process which need your immediate attention.
Please do share your inputs on this.
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