Mitigate Your Hiring Risk in 2013
Hiring is a fact of life in the business world. But any time you need to hire, you know you are opening yourself up to the prospect of risk:
- spending too much money during the process
- making the wrong hire and having to fire someone and start over again
- not finding the right person at all
So how can you mitigate that risk? How can you avoid overspending, bad hires or becoming frustrated when you have to find the right person for your supply chain positions?
The obvious choice is to work with a staffing firm that specializes in supply chain hiring. If you decide to do so, you should choose the firm carefully. In fact, interview them yourself! Ask them about:
- their qualifications
- the professional backgrounds of their recruiters
- the average tenure of their recruiters
- their success rates
- their retention rates
See whether they can share the names of any of their clients with you, or at the least tell you a few success stories. You want to make sure these people truly know the industry.
If you decide to do the sourcing and recruiting on your own, start the process off right. Evaluate your company’s hiring needs and what kind of employee will be the right type to meet them. You’ll also want to figure out how the new employee will meet those needs. Consider carefully analyzing and rewriting the job descriptions for your open positions to get yourself in the right mindset.
After you’ve advertised, sourced and screened candidates, when you think you’ve found a few with potential, don’t stop there. Due diligence is very important. Conduct background and reference checks on each candidate who has made it this far. Be sure to ask questions that will give you an idea of each person’s work ethic and personality. Culture fit is just as important as having the right skills.
Once a decision is made, the last step is to have an onboarding process in place to educate new employees of your policies and process. You want to be sure they have the tools, resources, and knowledge to be successful and productive. Unlike orientation, which usually lasts just a few hours, onboarding provides a more strategic plan for employee success and can actually continue for months, even years, depending on the position.
Hiring, sourcing, screening and interviewing. Conducting background checks and asking the right questions. Even onboarding. The experts at ZDA Supply Chain Recruiting have done it all, and done it well, for years. If you have any questions about the process, including how we can help you save time and money while finding the right candidates, contact us today.