Building a Strong Hiring and Onboarding Process

Recently we looked at the cost of a bad hire and why hiring is becoming more problematic for businesses.

In this article, I want to share some of the systems that can help build a strong hiring and onboarding process to help eliminate bad hires.

The first thing we have to do is create our hiring template. We need to be incredibly clear on what we are looking for in our ideal candidates and, as hard as it can seem, not take on people who do not show enough of these traits.

We break this down into three areas.

Primary Function Identifiers

What we are asking the people to be capable of doing. At Sandler, we use the SEARCH Matrix
Sandler SEARCH Matrix:

Skills - specific knowledge and abilities
Experience - performed well in the past
Attitude - State of mind
Results - accomplishments that verify the ability
Cognitive Skills - ability to learn and process information
Habits - specific behaviour required for the job

Winner Attributes

What does good look like in your team?

At Sandler, we use our Success triangle, which is the combination of Attitude, Behaviours and Techniques, that contribute to success.

When we talk about our winner attributes, we also break it down into these areas.

Attitude - what is the attitude of your top 20% of performers and what do you need this new hire to also have? When discussing this in our recent Sales Leadership session we talked about being introspective, meaning the ability to understand why something was good or bad and learn from it. We talked about being self-sufficient, self-aware and self-motivated. Driven and ambitious.

Behaviour - the actions or processes routinely practices enabling the individual to perform efficiently. For our new hires in this instance, we want them to be efficient, disciplined and professional.

Technique - the strategies or skills that enable them to perform effectively in their role. For example, this could be how they prepare and plan. How they execute certain tasks that will be required and how they communicate.

You need to map these out to show you what good looks like. This helps us with better objective interviewing. The best way to do this is to use an objective survey - we use Harver Outmatch They look for those things we have set out.

Team Matrix

What are team dynamics team and cultural fit?

We need to take into consideration:
The cultural fit of the candidate
Team capability and capacity
Communication and personality considerations

Your new hire needs to be able to slot into these three areas easily.

By understanding what you are looking for and the attributes associated with your new hire and creating a comparison with your existing team, you can start the process of eliminating bad hires into your organisation, and making more objective decisions.