How to Turn Your Team Into a Hiring Machine

Hiring employees is easier than you think.

Amazon announced plans to make thousands of job offers in just one day, as it holds a giant job fair next week across 12 warehouse locations. Impressive? Yes. Impossible for you to do the same? No.

Here’s how to turn your team into a hiring machine.

Blow up your current system of hiring. If you’re reading this, chances are the system you have in place isn’t getting the job done. Companies are spending way too much money and time trying to tweak a process that is badly damaged. Here’s what you can do instead.

Empower your hiring managers to hire. Pretend you are a start-up and you have to quickly staff an entire company. Would you hand all the open job requisitions to someone in HR and tell them to start hiring? Probably not, as you’ve yet to hire an HR team. Which is a good thing, because the responsibility of hiring belongs to the hiring manager and not HR.

Train your hiring managers on how to select for success. Okay, now that you’ve followed my advice and have given hiring managers the power to hire, you’ve got to make sure they know how to hire their dream team. Some of you may be thinking, “They should know that. After all, that’s why they’re called hiring managers!” Not so fast.

I’ve helped hundreds of leaders dramatically improve their hiring skills and often hear, “Oh! Now I finally know why I’m asking these questions!” Once a hiring manager knows what specifically they’re looking for, what questions to ask and how to interpret the candidate’s response, they’ll be able to move into warp speed. They’ll also stop wasting precious time with candidates who are clearly not the right fit.

Bring in an outside expert to teach your people the art of employee selection, so they can practice these skills in a safe environment. At a minimum, provide them with access to resources, like my, Selecting for Success: The Complete Guide to Hiring Top Talent.

Give hiring managers the authority to extend salary offers. You have a pretty good idea how much you’re willing to pay someone for a particular job. You’ve also already got budget approval or you wouldn’t be actively hiring. Then tell me why your hiring managers have to go back to HR to make a job offer, when they are well within budget?

If this is the case, then stop this immediately. While your people are waiting for HR to respond, your candidates are getting and accepting job offers from someone else.

Host an event. Now that you’re house is in order, it’s time to invite people in. Schedule an open house and alert job seekers that you’ll be hosting an event. Use all of your social media channels to help get the word out. Pull out all the stops and make sure you roll out the red carpet. And don’t forget to have your CEO wandering around the floor, welcoming people to your organization.

© Matuson Consulting, 2017. All Rights Reserved.

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Finding the right talent is hard. Finding the right talent that will prosper and stay is even harder when you do it alone.

Subscribe to Roberta's Talent Maximizer® and receive weekly insights to help you hire and retain top performers. PLUS receive The Evergreen Talent® Workbook for free - a guide to help you hire and cultivate a sustainable workforce.

Finding the right talent is hard. Finding the right talent that will prosper and stay is even harder when you do it alone.

Subscribe to Roberta's Talent Maximizer® and receive weekly insights to help you hire and retain top performers. PLUS receive The Evergreen Talent® Workbook for free - a guide to help you hire and cultivate a sustainable workforce.

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