How did I get here again? We hear this a lot from hiring managers while managing their hiring process. They believe they have diligently worked the steps only to realize a few months after the candidate starts that they are not such a great fit after all.

Before reworking your candidate profile or adding additional steps in the hiring process, you may want to consider these questions:

1. Do I really understand the gap between a bad hires’ skills, motivations and behaviors and what’s needed for the position and our culture?
2. Did we spend time upfront building a strong attraction campaign to bring in the best talent?
3. Was the candidate set up for success from their first day on the job and at incremental steps as they learned the expectations for the role?
4. Am I ready to let past mistakes go and effectively and efficiently work the hiring process to my next great hire?

If questions one and three can’t be answered with a resounding yes, using an assessment tool as part of your hiring and on-barding processes will bring value when you are ready to go through the hiring process again.

Teams with several individuals in the same position benefit from benchmarking the job to develop a complete picture of the position. This allows you to compare talent to the unique requirements of the position. If you’re not benchmarking the position, at a minimum you should be clear on the top results expected from individuals in the position. Your interview process can then be built around competencies that are key to delivering these results.

Candidates typically start a new position motivated to bring value and succeed. Providing the right resources, access to key information, and a specific guide of expectations as your new hire starts in their new role will help to set them for maximum success. Tailoring this to the individual’s identified drivers and strengths provides an added edge. A new hire who is a strong fit for the role, gets off to a great start and is positioned to continue to gain momentum with the organization, will be a valuable long-term asset.

Using an assessment to uncover areas to delve into deeper during the interview process with additional behavior-based questions will give you a much better idea of who you are hiring. This will keep you from saying, “how did I get here again?” shortly after a hiring decision! An added value with using the right assessment is that it gives insight to tailor the on-boarding process to get each individual new hire off to the best start.

We invite you to share your hiring stories and to reach out if you have questions about building an effective hiring process or how to set new hires up for success.