How to avoid making bad hires

Are you in the process of hiring one or more employees for your company? Are you wondering which steps you can take to avoid making a bad hire? Are you concerned that you’ll go down the wrong path, thus costing your company both time and money?

There are many steps you can take to avoid making bad hires. If you know what you should and shouldn’t be doing, it’s much easier to move forward in a confident manner. From there, once you make your hire, you can rest easy knowing that the person should fit in just fine.

So, with all this in mind, let’s examine four things you can do to help avoid a bad hire:

1. Interview multiple candidates

It’s never a good idea to hire the first candidate you interview. Even if this person is a good fit, you don’t want to stop there. You should see what other applicants bring to the table, as you never know who you will come across.

There is no way of saying exactly how many candidates you should interview, but don’t sell your company short.

For example, if you’re launching an ecommerce business, you’ll want to interview candidates with a variety of experience.

2. Use more than one interviewer

If possible, let another member of your team sit in on the interview process. This doesn’t sound like a big deal, but you never know when this person will pick up on something that you are missing.

You may even want somebody else to conduct an interview on his or her own. This way, you can compare notes as to get a clear idea of which candidates you both agree on.

Yes, using more than one interviewer will take extra time, but it can go a long way in making for a more efficient process in the long run.

3. Don’t rush to make a decision

Even if you need to hire someone as soon as possible, you should never rush through the process.

This is a big decision, so you need to take a step back and move forward at a pace you are comfortable with.

It’s hard to remain patient when you need immediate help, but you don’t want to rush so much that you make a poor decision. This will lead you back to the beginning of the process, thus wasting even more time.

4. Run background checks

It doesn’t matter what type of company you have or where it’s located, it’s important to run background checks on candidates.

With this process, you can quickly weed out candidates who don’t fit exactly what you are looking for (such as those who have a criminal record).

There are many details to consider when running background checks, so make sure you implement a process that you are comfortable with. This will ensure that you run the same type of check on every candidate.

Tip: Running background checks in house can be a confusing and time consuming process. You are better off hiring a company that specializes in this.

Look at the Past

Depending on the size of your company, you may have quite a bit of experience making hiring decisions.

Let this experience guide you as you decide what to do next. For example, if you’ve made certain mistakes in the past, do your best to avoid these in the future. Just the same, stick with the processes that have worked in your favor.

You can learn a lot about avoiding bad hires by simply reviewing what you have done in the past.

Conclusion

It goes without saying that you will have a lot on your mind as you attempt to make a new hire. Not to mention the fact that there are other parts of your business that require your attention, such as sales, marketing, and security just to name a few.

It may take some time, but when you make the right hire you will feel good about yourself. Conversely, if you bring the wrong person into your company, it can lead to more challenges than you ever thought possible.

What steps do you take to avoid making bad hires? Have you run into this problem in the past? Share your personal strategy for making the right hires in the comment section below.