As anyone who’s done it will tell you, recruiting can be fraught with danger. In this guest post, recruitment expert Kara Atkinson (pictured below) offers her top tips to ensure your new employee doesn’t turn out to be an expensive nightmare…

Investing in a team of rock star employees is the most profitable investment you will make.  Here’s how to take the coin-flip out of your hiring process.

1 – Create a Rockstar Scorecard

Hiring is ideally done across two axes: competencies and organisational fit. Competencies means their skills, abilities and characteristics required for excellence in a role. Organisational fit is a measure of a candidate’s core personality and principles matching your organisation’s culture and values.

2 – Define Your Rockstar’s DNA

The DNA is found in the personality traits that your current Rockstars already share.  It’s their core personality traits that have been ingrained from childhood.  There is a clear and fundamental difference between DNA and competencies. Competencies and skills can be improved. DNA rarely can.

3 – Define Your Employer Value Proposition

The top 10 companies in Australia in 2018, according to LinkedIn, have one commonality – a highly compelling Employee Value Proposition. What you expect your team to deliver, to your clients and customers, is what you need to deliver to your employees.

4 – Create an Invitation

Why do most companies take a standard job description template and post it online?  The reason Rockstars typically never interact with these posts is because job descriptions do not speak to their PAIN; do not speak to their VISION. There is no compelling reason to act.

5 – Design a Five-Star Candidate Experience

Most retail leaders never consider this, but a poor candidate experience makes it harder to attract talent. If your modus operandi is to have three-five contingency recruiters (and HR) go into the marketplace with different messages, candidates are bombarded with the same position. Most recruiters rarely call candidates back, or misrepresent renumeration and other key aspects, so they can get a submittal credit.

6 – Implement a Predictive Interview Structure

What you’re looking to do is de-risk the hiring decision by focusing on real predictors of success; not what most retail hiring managers actually do which is look at like a resume, education, interview ability and then hire on gut instinct. To help you create a five-star candidate experience, you need Four Stages, including an Initial Assessment, Competency Interview, DNA Interview and Test Drive.

7 – The Backdoor Reference Check

References are no better than a list of paid endorsements.  Run a search on LI, track the candidate’s previous managers and call them.  I need to stress here the confidential nature of the candidate’s job search.  It is imperative that you do not put anyone at risk by talking to current employers.  In today’s world, it is a major red flag if they tell you they’ve lost contact with a previous manager.

8 – The Offer

I have seen countless hiring managers make the mistake of ending the courtship too early; taking too long to make an offer, making a low-ball offer, changing the job title, or forgetting that the candidate is a human being. This is a ghosting act that tells the Rockstar you’re not sincere.

9 – Onboarding (Roll out the Red Carpet)

Don’t crush your new hire’s excitement with a mountain of orientation checklists or throw them in the deep-end with zero preparation. On-boarding, and its first cousin, retention, are forgotten about in the excitement of the hunt. Too many times I’ve seen hiring managers who, once they’ve gotten their Rockstars’ butt to hit the seat, move on to the next thing.

10 – Retention (Headhunter Proofing Your Team)

Turnover is good. Or at least, the right turnover is good. What you really have to worry about, is turnover amongst Rockstars. These people should be protected at all costs.