Hiring a new employee has always been quite an involved process, and it’s easy to cut corners even when you don’t mean to. Sometimes it doesn’t matter, but here we’ve listed some steps of the process that shouldn’t be ignored. If you need help with your recruitment tasks, you may consider working with a Temporary Job Staffing Service agency, or an executive search firm that specializes in hiring people for leadership roles.

A good advert

If you take a quick look at any hiring platform, you will find as many one-line advertisements which give no value to the applicant as you will lengthy ones with far too many technical details thrown in.

Just posting a job application and leaving it there is not the best way to ensure you get the best applicants. Instead, ensure your post describes the position without being too detailed, and engages the reader to make them enthusiastic to reply,

Further, a clever recruitment trick is to put a specific instruction about the application in the advert. If the applicant has followed the instructions then you know they have thought carefully about their application and are genuinely interested in the job, whereas if they don’t they could be just firing off applications to every vacancy they find – which is not the kind of candidate you’re looking for

Following up on references

While some diligent employers do actually follow up on references as a matter of course, it’s a surprisingly overlooked part of the recruitment process; people are much more keen to respond to their own instincts and first impressions than they are to enquire about a person’s history. Additionally, one of the reasons that employers ask for references is simply to check that the candidate is able to provide some – if they are unable, then that’s a red flag. 

However, following up on references isn’t just useful for learning whether the employee is reliable or competent – you can also find out more about their learning style, and read a lot into their references’ manner of speech and enthusiasm when they talk about them.

Pre Employment Drug Screening

You might think to yourself that drug screening is only necessary (or allowed) when you’re looking at public service jobs which involve safeguarding concerns, such as police officer, childcare worker or teacher. However, any employer is in fact entitled to screen an employee before taking them on and it isn’t difficult to do; all you need to do is buy  a Health Street 12 panel drug test at a reasonable price and request politely that your potential employee complete that test for you. The results come back instantly, and the test is quick, non-invasive and simple to perform.

Should you hire a new employee? Remember, you want to hire someone who’s genuinely a good fit for the company, for your team and who you trust. The only way you’ll achieve all that is by being thorough in the hiring process – so make sure you don’t cut these important corners.