OPENING GLEE
Hiring qualified employees can be a daunting task. Knowing who among many applicants fits into a job description and also has needed values can be hard to fathom within an hour or less of interview sessions. However, recruiters can make a lot of headway if they can avoid some common mistakes made during recruitment exercises.
Here, I listed THREE of them:
ONE
Many recruiters focus on hard skills at the expense of soft skills. It is okay to be sure that an applicant can deliver effectively on a job but far more important to know how long it will take him/her to do it (time management), if s/he can collaborate with others to do it (teamwork/networking), or how well they can do it under pressure (adaptability). Someone can be excellent with job-specific skills but lack the non-technical skills needed to be successful in the workplace.
While some recruiters know how important soft skills are, they assume a few questions in some minutes interview sessions can help them uncover how well a job applicant will do with soft skills. They have forgotten that there are organizations now that their main objective is to prepare your applicants to beat your interview processes but not necessarily have the required skills to function appropriately in those job roles. These applicants have been schooled on how to answer all the ‘tricky’ questions and puzzles you’ve depended on to help you reveal if someone has those non-technical skills.
It will definitely take more than your interview routines to beat this new sham. Thorough previous employment verification can be a viable way out of this. An in-depth digging into the applicant’s past employment history can help you see how the candidate fares in workspaces. Background Check International, the first and foremost full-service background screening firm in Nigeria, will provide you with a foolproof system that can aid the truth-validity of this check. The firm will help you get a proper assessment of the applicant’s previous performance both soft and hard skills and you can be sure to find the results useful for your final recruitment.
TWO
Many recruiters rate competence over character. They ignore or take light matters that pertain to integrity, trustworthiness, loyalty, and other attitude-based metrics of the applicant. Ingenuity is not enough. It is important recruiters run a thorough Integrity Check. As much as how your employees live their lives should be considered personal but their actions, inactions, and reactions outside or inside the workplace can be of grievous consequences to your brand outlook.
You definitely do not want to bring someone with a history of physical or sexual assaults, for example, into your workplace. You know how it will cost your business if s/he does anything in your organization that gets viral or lands you a lawsuit.
Apart from this, indifference attitude towards Integrity Check can also expose your organization to internal fraud and collusion, negligent hiring amongst others.
I will advise you to conduct a thorough Integrity Checks like Criminal Records Check, Neighbourhood Character Check, Litigation Check, Credit Check and now more crucial is an extensive Social Media Check. The new media reveals more than you can think about people these days.
THREE
This seems simple but it is also extremely important. Recruiters also go the wrong way when referees and guarantors are concerned. Mere calls and emails to referees and guarantors will not do. Those mediums can be easily compromised. You cannot tell who is who via emails or calls.
You should employ BCI well-trained professionals to help you get through to these referees (or guarantors as the case may be). They know how to approach them and how to elicit truthful referencing from them. Then when it comes to guarantors, I will strongly recommend you ask if the person will be willing to indemnify you in case of any loss, theft, or damage caused by the applicants. This reveals a lot about how far the guarantor is willing to go for the applicant and also serves as a form of insurance for the future; they might pass Integrity Check today and decide to change for the worse tomorrow.
HOW I END
I feel it is high time recruiters recognized and acknowledged the significant role background screening in their recruitment processes. It should be incorporated as a culture, not just another additional expense because, in the long run, background check is not a cost but an investment. It is a viable means of onboarding the best of talents that will not just deliver the value you want but also not damage your brand reputation.
For additional information and advice on Employment Background Check, send an email to [email protected] or [email protected], or call 01-3426267, 01-3426268.
