How Do I Avoid Hiring the Wrong Person?

As a successful leader, you know how frustrating it is when you begin to realize that one of your team members isn’t a good fit. You notice an issue and it begins to gnaw at you and then eventually it keeps you up at night. You hope the problem will go away, but it actually grows worse over time.

The time and financial cost of finding, hiring and training a team member who must ultimately be replaced by someone else who you have to find, hire and train is enormous. The opportunity cost is even greater. But how can you avoid it?

How Do I Avoid Hiring the Wrong Person?

We guide our clients through a patented process called Job Benchmarking in order to avoid making a bad hire. It works like this:

1. Identify a job on the team
2. Identify a small group of people who clearly understand the job
3. Gather these Subject Matter Experts to complete a job assessment
4. Combine the assessment results from the group into a single profile or, “benchmark” of the job
5. Ask job applicants to complete the talent assessment during the application process
6. Compare the assessment results from each candidate to the Job Benchmark
7. Hire your next team member with clarity on what aspects of the job will come easily and which will require greater focus

Here are some questions for you to consider about your team:

• How well do your team members, "fit?" 
• How long have you known that a person on your team is not a good fit?
• What have you done to solve that problem?
• What would it be like if everyone on your team had a role that lined up with their talent?

You might be surprised how many people are currently working in a job that is poorly defined or has never been defined at all. I often am, and I do this for a living. You really can't blame the person for not doing a job well when the job is unclear. Our job benchmarking process helps the job speak for itself. That way, when you are hiring someone new or developing someone who is already on your team, the target is clear.