The fear of making a bad hire keeps most managers up at night. A bad hire is emotionally draining, costly and can affect employee morale. Here are a few ways to alleviate the stress of hiring within your organization.

1. Partner up With a Staffing Agency

We are in one of the tightest job markets of modern times. If your company is seeking IT or engineering candidates, the job market is even more scarce; qualified IT and engineering candidates know this and are vetting their options and comparing their opportunities.

By aligning with a professional recruiter you can expedite your recruiting process. At Open Systems (OSI), our recruiting process assures that you will be interviewing only qualified candidates that meet your salary range and fit into your company culture.

2. Check Them Out

Reference checks are not an outdated process. Upon request OSI check references, along with social media profile verification. This process will help prevent those candidates that stretch the truth from infiltrating your company.

A properly conducted reference check takes experience, it’s a combination of detective work and psychologist. You want more than just verification of dates and job titles, you want to ensure the experience on their resume produced real, actionable results.

3. Skill Evaluation

Technical recruiting is a specialized niche in the staffing industry. When performing a skills assessment for professionals in information technology (IT) or engineering it critical their experience matches your company’s needs.

There are many ways to conduct a skill evaluation, some companies are using online testing, while other companies have the hiring manager design a project/task to complete. Online test taking is not reliable and having your in-house team develop and evaluate a skills test is time-consuming.

There is a better approach, a professional technical recruiter can develop, conduct and assess the skills assessment for you. For example, at OSI, this is part of our 5 Step OSI Recruiting Process.

Stress Free Hiring

By using a proven recruiting process model, you take the stress and guesswork out of the hiring process. This scientific method allows for repeatable results for finding top talent at your company.

Moving Forward

Luckily, you don’t have to invent a recruiting process on your own. OSI has developed a certified process for recruiting engineering, IT and technical candidates that produce top level, qualified candidates.

Learn more about OSI’s  5 Step Recruiting Process and how it can benefit your company.

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Ensure Salary and Benefits Are Competitive

To retain top talent, employers must provide pay and benefits that are competitive. In some cases, it may require employers to go a little beyond what they usually would. However, in the long run, this investment will pay off. For example, when coming up with a compensation package, factor what finding, hiring, and training a new employee will cost. How much will a recruiter run? Will much productivity time be lost training a new hire?

Provide Educational and Training Opportunities

Keeping a top performer at the top of their skills is an investment in them that also pays dividends for your organization. While training can take away from work hours, it can pay for itself down the road. Typically, allowing opportunities for education and training makes the top performer feel valued and appreciated. This leads them to stay with the company longer and incentivizes them to work harder.

Make Sure Work Is Recognized

Often the work of elite performers can go unnoticed; this is a classic case of “the squeaky wheel gets the grease.” Make sure that good work is always acknowledged. Spot bonuses or awards can be a good way to achieve this. Even something as simple as an email saying “job well done” to a top performer goes a long way.

Ensure Work Stays Challenging

If a top performer keeps delivering on time and above expectations, it may be time to tweak the strategy for that employee. It is all too easy to want to keep in place employees who are doing a job well. However, too much time in any job can easily lead to burn out and boredom. If an employee doesn’t feel challenged in their current role, it can cause them to start looking for other, more exciting opportunities.

Make Sure Mentoring is in Place

While it may not seem a top performer needs mentoring, it can be a useful tool for both the employee and the organization. Mentoring not only helps the employee to grow but also helps keep them connected to the firm. This connection will decrease the risk of the employee not feeling attached or valued.

Ensure the Top Performer Sees a Future In Your Organization

Finally, the main reason an employee leaves an employer is the lack of a future. The best way to fight against this is to make sure that your top performer sees a path of progression within the firm. Providing a clear career path with goals and objectives clearly outlined makes it more likely that your top performers will stick around.

Moving Forward

Retaining top performers is a vital part of running any business. If you need help in recruiting top talent or in developing strategies for retaining top talent, its best to reach out to the professionals at Open Systems.

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