James C. Collins the eminent American management consultant and author, in his book Good to Great said “ Great vision without Great people is irrelevant .”

People are the most important asset for any organization. Collins emphasizes that right people are the best asset rather than general or average people. Leaders have great vision for the growth of companies, but without great people it will be really difficult to form a great company.

Dependence on a singular vision, brilliance and capability does not make a successful company. That’s the reason you need great and right people! You do not need to manage the right people tightly as they are self-motivated and their inner drive urges them to provide best results.

Building a great team with right people now tops the priority list of almost all companies, across the globe. Right choice of employee helps in organizational growth and has a positive impact on the working ambience. Be it large enterprises or small businesses, you need human resources with specific skill set with appropriate personal traits rather than generalists to keep the growth curve pointing the sky.

Outsource the hiring process

Companies across all sectors now outsource business functions and processes to a third party or external vendors. Or they opt for Upwork, Freelancer, Guru, 99designs, Peopleperhour and Toptal, the leading online platforms for hiring the experts. These platforms have their individual processes for choosing talents.

Outsourcing makes it easy for the companies to recruit skilled professionals. It is a cost-effective way of hiring the best human resource that suits any business model. Best part is that companies can now focus on their core functionalities and leave hiring the right candidate to the outsourcing partners.

So, if you are the dedicated outsourcing partner of a business or organization, it is important to provide the latter with the finest set of human resources to accomplish the project. But, the problem that often crops up is the choice of right candidate. When you are recruiting human resources, it is imperative that you will choose the best talent.

A word of caution for recruiters – even if you have a shoestring budget for talent acquisition, never compromise. A bad hiring decision or a wrong talent affects the overall productivity and hurts the morale of the team. Your leaders might have to spend time, for training the wrong talent, which they could have used for some productive work.

How to determine the right candidate

A bad hire will put the reputation of your business at stake. Have a talent acquisition strategy in place as it serves as the foundation to guide the hiring process. It will help in identifying the ideal candidate by assessing the correct personality that will fit the organization and screen them accordingly.

Behavior traits and skill are two important factors that determine the hiring of correct candidates. Usually, there are few tests and interview processes to select a right candidate:

• Aptitude tests for measuring vocabulary, reasoning, numeric and verbal skill
• Sample tests to demonstrate the skill of candidates relevant to the particular job vacancy
• Personality tests to assess personal characteristic and traits and determine whether fit for the company
• Psychomotor ability tests to know the strength and weakness of candidates in a particular area of work
• Nondirective interview where the candidate will lead the conversation and the interviewer will follow
• Problem-solving and situational interview where candidates need to describe how they will respond to a particular situation
• Behavioral interview to know how the candidate will respond in a particular situation

Recruiters, whether it is for it outsourcing or for any other department of your organization, emphasize on these tests. However, it is important to have a full-proof procedure to hire the best talent as the productivity and revenue depend on it.

A Checklist to hire the Right Candidate

Benchmarking the standards, assessing the skill of the present human resources, evaluation and screening process ensure acquisition of correct talents. Based on the industry best practices and time-test methodologies, recruiters can prepare a checklist.

• Benchmark the correct behavior– Assess the behavior of the top performers in your organization for any particular job role. Benchmarking will help in recognizing a potential candidate for your organization.
• Target ideal candidate– Your job advertisement has an important role to play. Writing an advertisement for job vacancy required both writing expertise and marketing skill. Use of role-specific words and phrase will prove to be effective and attract the right talent.
• Pre-screen the flow- The pre-screening acts as the first line of defense, saving you the time otherwise wasted in dealing with incompetent candidates. A simple questionnaire with emphasis on skill assessment will help in identifying the correct employee.
• Rank the applicants- Develop an evaluation criteria to choose the right human resource. Based on pre-screening, rank the applicants as it will make the recruitment process less time-consuming.
• Behavioral description interviewing– It is an important process that differentiates the top performers from the average candidates. Research has proved that behavioral analysis during the interview process helps in predicting the success rate of the resource in that particular position.
• Compare and evaluate– Match the selected top candidates with the top performer of your company, for that position. If you have already benchmarked the specific behavioral tendencies and personality traits it will be easy for the recruiters to evaluate whether the candidate will fit the position or not.
• Watch out the Red Flags– Reputation of your organization matters, so properly check the background, reference and other factors that might affect the reputation and turnover statistics in the long-term.

Apart from these areas, you also need to assess the recruitment process. Make sure that the talent acquisition strategy and process is at par with the need of the organization and corporate objectives.