Hiring mistakes are costly. Hiring mistakes can cost the employer money. Sometimes the cost is $10,000 or more, when you consider hiring, training, and firing the initial candidate. Factor in hiring and then training the new employee, and perhaps the cost of a human resources or legal counsel.
There is also the possible decline in morale from your current work staff. Nothing like a bad new employee to bring them all down. And then there is the embarrassment issue. This unqualified and incompetent candidate may have created difficulties with your clients. You may face losing clients because of what your worker said or did to them. And then, in more egregious instances, your new employee may have done something so terribly wrong it made the six o’clock news.
Some employers like to go with their guts. But, honestly, in this world where the economy has driven desperate people to lie on their resumes about skill sets and education, your gut is hardly enough. You can only go so far with your gut. After that, you had better go with background checks. There are charming people who talk and act the part, but are anything but qualified for the position. Or they have the sort of criminal or social histories you would find unfitting for your business environment.
In an article in Inc.com, What It Takes to Avoid Hiring Mistakes, the writer lists four pre-employment screening tools that may help you avoid the costly mistakes of hiring the wrong employment candidate. Here are some great tips from the article–
Background checks. Background checks will ensure you’re not risking your business by hiring a violent criminal, white-collar criminal, or illegal alien. With nearly half of all small business job applicants submitting resumes with false information, going the extra mile to have professionals check for red flags is a must to keep your business out of harm’s way.
Drug screening tests. Experts in toxicology say that 75 percent of illegal drug users are employed, and most work for small and mid-size businesses. If you’re in a business that uses drivers, people performing physical labor, or other positions that require alert, sober employees in place to avoid serious accidents, drug tests are an absolute necessity.
Skills testing. Just because a candidate looks good on paper doesn’t mean he or she will be able to follow through with excellent work. Whether you’re hiring a copywriter who must have an excellent grasp on grammar or a programmer who needs to be well versed in C++, skills testing will provide a detailed look into how a candidate is truly capable of performing.
Personality tests. A professional personality assessment can reveal aspects of a candidate’s character and potential that an interview can’t. Will the salesperson you’re thinking of hiring be a good fit in your highly competitive business? A personality test lets you find out before ever sending an offer letter.