Business mentor: Learning to make the most of a (vacant) situation

How do I decide which candidate to employ?

Howard Chaffey, director of BridgesOne, replies:

There is no getting away from the fact that the selection of new employees is going to have a critical impact on your business success.

The cost of an incorrect selection is enormous, especially for a small business. There's the loss of time, disruption to the firm, lost business opportunity and the potential costs of removing someone.

So spending a little extra time to do a thorough job will pay off in the long run.

The most important part of any business decision is to have a sound foundation from which to work. In this case it is knowing exactly what the hiring of a new person will achieve for the business.

Take the time to be very clear about the candidate's duties and responsibilities, how you want them to act and whether they are there to carry on as before or make significant impact or change to the business.

Once you are clear about what you need this person to do, then carefully define the skills, qualifications, personality, style and beliefs of the person that are best going to meet your expectations for this role and achieve the fit you require for the rest of the existing team.

Then put together a set of questions - preferably open-ended and behaviour-oriented - in which the candidates describe a series of situations, the actions they took and what outcomes resulted from their actions.

These questions should give the candidates an opportunity to illustrate the things you do and do not want them to do.

You should ask enough questions to make sure that you understand the pattern of behaviour of each candidate and take plenty of notes.

Then rank their answer against your ideal.

Before making a decision, go away and compare the answers from the candidates against each other and also against the ideal, making sure you understand the difference between the content of their answers and their interviewing style.

Remember, the very thing a candidate is trying to distract you from is probably the very thing you should know about so listen to what they don't say as well as what they do say.

If at the end of the process no candidate meets your expectations make sure you do not hire. Simply start again and don't compromise your standards.

If you are still unsure, it is a good chance to bring the most likely candidates back for another discussion.

Try interviewing in a different situation and if possible with someone else who knows both you and the organisation and whose judgment you trust.

You may also seek outside assistance through a professional recruitment agency and/or look to some form of psychological assessment to help reduce the risk and provide greater clarity.

Intuition can also play a part in this process but it is essential that you take care to understand your own prejudices.

Make time to reflect on your decision before committing, even if it just means sleeping on it overnight. Remember, the best indicator of how someone will perform is their past pattern of behaviour.

If they claim to have made a change then make sure you understand what has made them change and what their incentive is to continue in their new way of working.

Make sure you check at least two verbal references and take care to listen to what they don't say about the person.

Finally, make sure you obey the human rights and privacy laws. If you do find yourself in trouble from a disgruntled candidate and you have done all the preparation work, your decision not to proceed with that person will have a great deal more credibility with the courts than if you did things in a much less structured manner.