Three Things to Check Before You Hire

Finding the perfect candidate for a position is a costly process in itself. While it is worth the time and money spent if you do find the right person, hiring the wrong person can cost businesses around two-and-a-half times the yearly salary of the employee in question.

To avoid this, here are three things we suggest you check in order to help you find the right person for the job:

Skills testing

After the initial interview, it is important to test the preferred candidate on the skills required for the position. There are a range of tests that you can ask your candidate to complete to check that their skills are up to scratch and are consistent with the skills listed on their resume.  One of the most common today is a computer literacy test, testing a worker’s competency on the Microsoft Office Suite.  Skill assessments are also available to test accounting awareness and skills, knowledge of particular software programs and typing speed.  Finally, there are a range of behavioural tests to test a candidate’s emotional intelligence and personality traits.

These skill tests do not have to be not the be-all-and-end-all for your favourite candidate. If you find that your preferred candidate’s skills in a particular area are not at the level ideal for the position, and you still want to get them into the business, you know that you will need to spend some time with them refining that skill, rather than being surprised later.

Reference checking

Many employers do not see the value in reference checking because they believe that if a candidate has this person listed on their resume, they do so for good reason: in confidence that that employer will not give a bad reference. Nevertheless, reference checking is a good way for employers to gain an insight into their preferred candidate as a worker and also to discover areas in which the candidate may have needed improvement. If asked, past employers are more likely to touch on a candidate’s area of weakness when they have given a generally positive reference.  Bear in mind that permission from the candidate to contact referees should be obtained, and these referees should be people that the candidate reported to in their most recent role.

Police checking

Police checking is not something that is required for every role. However, if you know that there are restrictions on working in your particular industry with a criminal history, conducting a police check on your candidate is imperative. Finding out later that the person you’ve hired has a criminal record and is no longer allowed to perform their role will result in a lot of wasted time and money, as well as disappointment on the part of the candidate as well as your business.

Some areas that require candidates to have a clean criminal record include teaching, childcare, law and correction, health, government roles, managerial positions, and public passenger services.

Hiring the wrong person for the job can result in a huge amount of your business’s money and resources going to waste. Taking the extra time to follow these three steps and find out the right information about the candidate means that you can be confident that you’ve hired the best suited candidate for you role.