Hiring is a critical process that significantly impacts the growth and success of both companies and individuals. It's a company wide effort that's why the document is written in a way that can be used by anyone involved in the process. To ensure a fair, transparent, and efficient hiring process, consider the following dos and don'ts across various stages:
Make sure that the company is financially capable of keeping current employees and hire new ones in a sustainable way.
- Cost controls: Regularly review and control expenses to ensure financial stability.
- Cost cuts: Identify areas for cost reduction without compromising essential operations.
- Overspend: Avoid exceeding budget limits without proper justification.
- Default: Strive to meet financial obligations to prevent defaulting on commitments.
- Incentivize internal controls: Encourage responsible use of resources through performance incentives.
- Incentivize savings: Reward employees for contributing to cost-saving initiatives.
- Incentivize fraud: Avoid creating incentives that could lead to fraudulent activities.
- Incentivize waste: Discourage practices that contribute to unnecessary resource wastage.
Make sure that the job advert attracts the right candidates.
- Include domain knowledge requirements: Clearly outline the necessary expertise for the role.
- Include soft skills requirements: Specify interpersonal and communication skills.
- Include hard skills requirements: Clearly define technical skills required.
- Include experience requirements: Allow for consideration of quick learners.
- Include education requirements: Acknowledge the value of self-taught individuals.
- Include location requirements: Be open to remote or relocated candidates.
- Include salary range: Set clear expectations regarding compensation.
- Include benefits: Communicate additional perks and benefits.
- Include timezones: Clarify potential work hour expectations.
- Include offices location and remote work possibilities: Provide flexibility options.
- Include jokes: Maintain professionalism in the job advert.
- Include buzzwords: Use clear and straightforward language.
- Include Jargon or Acronyms: Ensure the job advert is easily understandable.
Make sure that the candidate understand the role and feel comfortable talking about it.
- Discuss Optimistic career scenario: Discuss the best-case scenario for the role.
- Discuss Realistic career scenario: Discuss the most likely scenario for the role.
- Discuss Pessimistic career scenario: Discuss the worst-case scenario for the role.
- Over-promise: Avoid making commitments that cannot be fulfilled.
- Under-promise: Ensure realistic expectations are communicated.
- Speculate: Stick to facts rather than speculative statements.
- Be concise: Keep discussions focused and to the point.
- Listen actively: Pay attention to candidate responses.
- Rush: Allow sufficient time for meaningful conversations.
- Drag: Avoid unnecessary prolongation of the interview process.
Make sure that the new hire has the necessary resources to get started and that the team is ready to welcome them.
- Provide a sandbox: Offer a safe environment for learning and experimentation.
- Provide operational security guidelines: Emphasize the importance of security and confidentiality.
- Provide a list of resources to start with: Facilitate a smooth start with essential resources.
- Provide access to production environment: Limit access to critical systems initially.
- Provide access sensitive data: Clearly label which data is confidential.
- Provide access to sensitive systems: Make it difficult to accidentally break things.
- Provide a dedicated peer: Assign a colleague to help with onboarding.
- Provide a dedicated mentor: Assign a mentor to help with career development.
- Isolate: Ensure new hires feel integrated into the team.
- Overwhelm: Avoid overwhelming new hires with too much information.
Make sure that reorganization does not disrupt operations.
- Avoid Intermediaries: Streamline communication and decision-making processes.
- Outsource everything: Retain control over critical aspects of the business.
- Create synergies between teams: Encourage collaboration between teams.
- Duplicate efforts: Ensure efficient use of resources.
Make sure that the company remains reactive to potential candidates.
- Have a dedicated inbox: Streamline the application process.
- Whitelist domains: Prevent important emails from being overlooked.
- Bounce emails: Ensure all communication channels are reliable.
- Throttle inboxes: Avoid restricting communication flow.
- Quantify objectives: Clearly define measurable goals.
- Qualify deliverables: Clearly define the expected outcomes.
- Prioritize tasks: Establish a clear hierarchy of tasks.
- Be complacent: Encourage continuous improvement and innovation.
- Be vague: Provide a clear direction for the team.
- Be arbitrary: Ensure expectations are reasonable and achievable.
Make sure that the company can retain and develop talent.
- Build a path and ladder: Define career progression opportunities.
- Build a wall or ceiling: Avoid limiting career progression.
- Let them learn domain knowledge
- Let them learn soft skills
- Let them learn hard skills
- Let them struggle with commute and relocation expenses: Offer support for practical challenges.
- Let them struggle with training and equipment costs: Provide necessary resources for learning and development.
Make sure that work is meaningful and enjoyable.
- Be flexible: Allow for flexible working hours.
- Be supportive: Offer support for personal challenges like parental leave, side projects, etc.
- Let down: Avoid letting down employees in times of need.
- Let people burn out: Ensure a healthy work-life balance.
- Respect privacy: Avoid unnecessary surveillance.
- Assume consent: Ensure employees are aware of data collection practices.