Selecting Staff In 21st Century Small-Medium Business: A Checklist of Professional Practice

Staff selection is expensive. It's sometimes difficult to find the "right" people. When you fail it costs even more and puts more pressure on other staff. This checklist will help you take a professional approach to increase your chance of success.

Selecting staff is a complicated business. Most managers don't get enough practice to be skilled in it. And staff selection is expensive. The cost of "mistakes" is huge and haunting. Poor staff selection erodes profitability and increases pressure on other staff.

An Unconventional Approach

You'll find that his checklist does not follow many of the conventional wisdoms about staff selection. But it's based on my 4 decades of experience in selection. At the very least, this approach will remove most of the costly mystique that shrouds so much selection. All staff selection involves risk. I'm trying to reduce the risk for you.

The Checklist

• The prime purpose of staff selection is to get a job done. It is not to choose a person.

• Keep your focus on the future when selecting staff. What's most important is what they'll do for you and how well they'll do it when they're working for you. Past performance is important. But it's also history.

• You can only achieve a satisfactory selection result if you specify, right at the start, the job results you want to achieve.

• The purpose of the job advertisement – in whatever form – is to attract the person or persons, the fewer the better, who'll achieve the job results for you in your business.

• It's in your best interests to include statements starting with "Only apply if " or "Do not apply unless " in your job advertisement. Your ad should deter unsuitable applicants.

• If you receive lots of applications you've either * failed to specify the job results you want * written a poor advertisement.

• The perfect job advertisement attracts only one applicant: the "right" one.

• Never, ever, ever ask for written applications. They're an open invitation to misrepresentation, conscious or unconscious. They can also create a self-fulfilling prophecy. This usually means that the candidate with the best resume gets the job.

• Always conduct a phone screening interview before committing to a personal interview. Only grant a personal interview after you're satisfied that a candidate has the background you regard as essential.

• The personal interview is a privilege to be granted to as few people as possible. You cannot tell what a person can do merely by talking to them.

• If an applicant claims he or she is competent at something, don't believe them – or anyone else. Let them demonstrate that they can actually do what they say they can.

• The personal interview is to assess whether a candidate who's reached that stage in the process will fit your culture. You should have decided whether they can do the job long before the personal interview. That's why you use the telephone screen and tests.

• Always ask for proof of qualifications

• Never ask for written references. I've never seen a candidate present a "poor" reference.

• If you must do reference checks, treat the information you receive with healthy scepticism.

• Be absolutely "upfront" with applicants about your overall selection process, the salary and benefits, working conditions and any other constraints or rewards. If you try to be tricky, evasive and secretive expect candidates to be the same. You'll be the loser.

• Always use a mutually agreed probationary period, even for managers and professionals. An agreed "probation" gives both parties the opportunity to terminate agreeably and legally a situation that "isn't working out". But make sure you meet local legal requirements.

• The selection process is complete and successful only when the new employee is achieving the job results you specified before you commenced the process.

Conclusion

A lot of what I've written flies in the face of accepted practice and conventional wisdom. I'm sorry if that offends you. But staff selection is a very expensive exercise. It's a net profit eroder. One of the major costs is the time you spend in the process. If you make an unsatisfactory appointment, you have to terminate the new employee and repeat the exercise. That's more net profit down the drain. Think about it.