Strategic hiring systems result in better labor-to-employer matches and cover 4 basic areas.  How does your firm measure up?

1. Be the employer of choice!  If you want to attract top-notch applicants, you have to be a desirable place to work. Some think that once they get good employees, they’ll have a great firm.  It’s the other way around, folks.  Grocery-chain network, Wegman’s, is #10 on the Fortune 100’s Best Companies to Work For in the US.  This gives Wegman’s the hiring edge over regional competitors.  Would you submit an application at your firm?

2. Define specific skills, not just a job description.  Don’t assume you’ll know what you need when it walks through the door.  Applicants can have great skills and talents and still not be the best for the job.  You can eliminate least attractive applicants fast and accurately with a skills checklist.  This saves time, prevents errors, and decreases expensive turnovers.

3. The right people should do the hiring.  If they don’t know strategy, they have no business choosing your employees. Yet every day, leaders expect managers in IT or finance to hire someone new without ever informing them about strategy and long-term direction.  So who’s to blame when you don’t get the results you want? This is also a common problem that HR faces; HR wants strategic inclusion but is used as tactical. On the flip side, just because someone knows what the company needs, it doesn’t mean they know how to weed the right people out of a pool of applicants.

4. Use tools to ensure the right match.  Applicant-selection tools define solid candidates and remove guesswork. SHRM, the Society for Human Resource Management, has a new service called the “SHRM Assessment Center”, located at http://www.shrm.org.  Click on the “HR Resources” navigational bar to find over 200 types of selection tools.  Some are as generic as pre-employment screening.  Others target specific organizational needs including mechanical and technical expertise.  Tools are more likely to bring predictable, reliable results than gut instinct.

When hiring, look at your firm’s big picture, and fill needs one person at a time.  For example, Southwest Airlines’ labor needs are different than McDonald’s.  Southwest uses an evaluation process that attracts and selects happy and self-motivated employees.  At one stage, applicants must make an energetic presentation to staff and a room full of other applicants.  If the thought of public speaking sends you running for the door, you aren’t Southwest material.

McDonald’s takes an alternative approach.  They’ve built a billion-dollar giant by injecting unskilled labor through a sophisticated operational system.  Most often, a simple application suffices for qualification. They’ve built their employee model on it!

After hiring, your job’s still not done.  You have to keep employees and entice other good people to work for you.  That’s when living up to your title as “employer of choice” comes into play.  People perform better when they’re part of a well-oiled machine. They want to be productive.  Ever watch an employee on the first day of the job?  They count on you to give good leadership, superior systems, and necessary tools.  If you fall short, don’t blame them when they’re floundering.

Develop strategic hiring system.  Here’s how to start: 
1. Build a hiring system with flowcharts and outlines before you initiate hiring.
2. Determine what you want in an employee in advance.  Don’t make it up as you go along.
3. Test the job description and outcomes by doing the job yourself for a week. Don't take executive privilege.
4. Revisit any flaws and modify.  Flaws will surface almost immediately.
5. Have others try the process, and watch how they work the system. Then fine-tune the process.
6. Work the interview process as defined in #1.
7. Hire.  Use the results to modify and enhance your process for future use.
8. Live up to your end of the deal by providing good leadership, systems, and tools.

In the search for good employees, shortcuts produce short-term results. You have to earn good employees.  Make your firm an attractive place to work.  Implement a strategic hiring system.  And strive to be a leader who gives people what they need to succeed.  In doing so, you will find and keep the right people for your organization.