9 Advantages of Hiring the Right Candidate for the First Time

There is a lot at stake every time you fill a position in your company. Here are nine benefits that you will enjoy when you hire the right candidate for the first time.

You will dramatically reduce the cost of the hiring process

It's no secret that the hiring process is expensive. Not only do your HR managers have to take time out of their busy schedules, but you also have to spend money on criminal background checks, skill tests, job postings and more. If you hire the wrong person, you have to go through the same hiring process more than once, essentially doubling the cost. A good hiring avoids both the second hiring process and the additional costs.

You will maximize productivity

Your time is valuable, and your managers' time is valuable. Running a hiring process means taking senior members of your team out of their daily routine and getting them to review applications and conduct interviews. If you have four or five interviews a day for a few weeks, it is difficult to do much of your other work. A fast and thorough hiring process will enable you to get back to work faster and more efficiently.

You save time that you would have spent reviewing applications or interviewing candidates

Loss of productivity is not the only problem when you or your managers get stranded in interview rooms. The other problem is even easier: boredom. After a while, every resume can start to look the same, and job interviews feel interchangeable. If you spend too much time in the hiring process, your own boredom can make you ill-equipped to recognize top candidates. The less and the further between your hiring processes, the easier it will be to get down to business with a clear head and find the rough diamond.

You will not have to deal with the damage that a bad attitude can do to your company

Bad hiring can have negative effects for many different reasons. Some of them can pose a security risk to customers or colleagues (hence the need for criminal background checks). Others can steal from your company, hurt your customer relationships through incompetence or create a negative atmosphere in the workplace. Bad attitudes will almost always harm your business in one way or another. By avoiding bad hiring, your company will not be harmed.

You will maintain the morale of your internal teams

No employee exists in a vacuum. Every person you hire fits into your company like a piece of a puzzle in a much bigger canvas. A good attitude can not only bring important new skills and experience to your team, but also bring warmth, inspiration and camaraderie to your corporate culture. At the other end of the spectrum, a bad attitude can harm the morale of your entire workforce, whether it corrupts the work culture with a bad attitude or forces other team members to fill the gap behind his or her lackluster work.

You protect your image as an employer

When your corporate culture goes downhill, word will always get around. If your employees do not say something good about your company (or if they leave because they are no longer satisfied with their work), these things will have a bad effect on you as an employer. If you fill the same position twice in six months, it also reflects badly on you as an employer. By hiring the right people, you protect your reputation on both fronts.

They do not let good candidates walk out the door

Every time you hire someone, you have to turn down dozens of other applicants, probably quite a few of whom are qualified for the job. When you find the right person, this compromise doesn't sting as much. If you make a bad hire, it can be frustrating to know that you are letting better applicants slip through your fingers. Sure, you may have contact information for some of the people who were in your pool the first time, but the most qualified people have probably already found other jobs and won't be too eager to run back to a company that has already turned them down.

You don't have to train an employee who won't stay

Interviewing and reviewing resumes is a nuisance, but often the biggest irritation in the hiring process is the training of the employees. Training employees, familiarizing them with your company's processes and policies and helping them integrate into your team takes a lot of time. Even with very talented and adaptable employees, the onboarding process will never happen overnight. Depending on the complexity of the position to be filled, it can take months - if not a year - for your new employees to reach full productivity. Putting all that time and effort into training someone who won't be part of your organization is one of the most devastating blows if you've made a bad hire. To make matters worse, when you finally hire someone else, you have to start the induction process - and the run-up to full productivity - all over again.

You avoid passing on passwords and confidential company information to people you cannot trust

Today, every employee needs access to corporate Web sites, accounts, software and confidential information. Usually, sharing this information is not a big deal, because you are sharing it with people who will be part of your team for years to come. If you bring a person into your company, give them the keys to the kingdom and then terminate their employment a few months later, you are causing cyber security a big headache. Sure, your IT team can simply close users' accounts, logins or software licenses. What you can't do is take back confidential information that the person has collected while working for your company. By hiring the right person the first time, you can ensure that as few people as possible ever have access to your systems or data.

Conclusion

The hiring process is complicated by the fact that some job seekers are willing to lie in order to improve their employment opportunities. Employers can combat poor hiring by introducing detailed employee screening processes, including criminal background checks, reference checks, verification checks (for employment, training and professional certification), skill tests, personality assessments and targeted interview questions. These methods, combined with a clear understanding of what the position to be filled involves and what the corporate culture should be, will help you find the right attitude the first time you hire.

Once you have hired the best candidate, you may find that he or she inadvertently violates rules or company policies. Learn more about how pre-employment testing can bring these traits to light early and 3 common reasons why we break rules.

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