Employee selection methods are a vital part of the recruiting process. Selecting the right candidate for your team involves careful evaluation, assessment, and finally selection of applicants within your talent pool. Think of your candidate selection process like a marketing funnel qualifying applicants at every step of the process to identify whether or not they have the necessary skills that your company needs to succeed.

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The candidate selection process begins in the sourcing and screening phase. Here, HR, hiring managers or recruiters will source candidates through various channels such as job boards, career sites, and social media. Although, as the candidate pool shifts from one platform to another hiring managers are having to get more creative in attracting talent in order to find the right mix of skills, experience, and culture fit.

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Many influencers are creating job boards specifically, for those with their network and industry. One example of this is ExitFive, which is an online job board for marketers started by Dave Gerhardt.

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Once the candidate pool is identified, recruiters can start pre-screening applicants using an applicant tracking system (ATS) or a proprietary screening tool. This step of the process involves reviewing resumes, LinkedIn profiles, and portfolios to see if the candidates meet the job requirements set by hiring managers. After evaluating each candidate, they are then moved to the next step.

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The phone screen. Candidates who meet the initial criteria will be invited for a phone screen or online chat to further evaluate their skills, cultural fit, and knowledge. This step is often with a junior member of the recruiting team and is just a formality- more of a box to be checked than an in-depth interview.

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If there are no red flags and the candidate meets all the necessary qualifications, they're moved from screening into the interview phase. This is where the hiring manager will use interview intelligence software or a video interview platform to meet with the candidate one-on-one and assess their fit for the team. Depending on the company's size and the resources available to them, once the hiring manager is satisfied that the candidate is a good fit, they move into the next step which can involve multiple interviews with different team members, panels, or even (depending on size) the whole team.

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Finally, after all the interviews have been conducted, assessments and reference checks must be completed. Reference checks are a simple way to verify the accuracy of the information provided by applicants, while assessments may be used to measure skills, problem-solving, or technical aptitude.

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Sometimes after each of the previous steps is completed, companies like to add an executive interview to put a nice bow on the hiring process. This doesn't always happen and it isn't always necessary, but it can be useful in showing the candidate that they're valuable and get them excited for their new role. If everything checks out, an offer letter should be sent out to the candidate and you've successfully completed your candidate selection process.

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Selection Criteria for Hiring Employees

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Over the past few years, we've seen a divergent trend in tech, as companies have become more adept at identifying the right talent. Companies are now looking beyond resumes, ivy league educations, and even portfolios to focus on more holistic selection criteria that can include anything from a candidate's personality profile and interests to their values and how they would fit into the existing culture. In short, we all want a tight-knit, effective team, that has the ability to move mountains.

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When you measure things like attitude, mindset, interpersonal skills, learning agility, conflict resolution, leadership, team fit, and problem-solving skills in your selection criteria for hiring employees over technical skills you'll build a great team. A few years ago, I was meeting with the CEO of one of the fastest-growing security system resalers in the country. When I asked him how he made hiring decisions, he said, "I give each candidate something to sink their teeth into and see who comes back hungry and obsessed."

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Create criteria for selection that uncovers the candidate's natural skills, interests, and internal drive. When you combine these innate traits with the interpersonal skills necessary to work well with a team, you've found a powerful combination. When making a hiring decision look for someone who has the willingness to learn and grow fast, who's eager to take on assignments that require a degree of risk, and who has an obsession with exceeding expectations no matter what task they are assigned.

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Have you ever seen the movie 'Moneyball'? The story shows how teams can use analytics to identify players with natural abilities rather than big egos. Once the natural abilities are put to use in the correct way, the domino effect leads to a championship-winning team. This is how you build selection criteria in HRM (human resources management).

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Selection Process in Management

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Selecting the right managers for your business is a magnitude riskier than the employee selection process. Contrary to popular belief, great ICs (individual contributors) do not always make great managers. This is a huge misnomer that's been perpetuated in the business world for far too long.

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Having a great manager with incredible leadership skills will make or break a team and can be the difference between success and failure for your organization. But how do you create selection process steps to ensure that you find natural managers?

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The selection process in management roles should be unique and more involved than employee selection processes due to the level of responsibility, trust, and accountability associated with leadership positions. It should be a bit more rigorous than the traditional selection process.

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The first step to selecting the right managers is building a comprehensive job description. The job description should include not only the tasks they will be performing but also the company culture, expectations, and core values. This will give candidates a clear idea of what the job entails, and how it aligns with their personal goals.

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Once a manager candidate has been screened and has reached the interview phase, give them mock scenarios or assignments that test their ability to work with people under the best and worst conditions. Put them under pressure and see how they respond. Look for leaders that take personal responsibility and also give credit to their team. Use interview intelligence tools like Pillar to assess their micro-expressions and tonal changes, and look for signs of deflection or deception.

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A weird but highly accurate way of telling whether someone will be a great leader or not is how many high fives they give. In a 2014 study, teachers who gave high fives over words of affirmation saw a dramatic increase in student motivation. They concluded that high fives made people feel celebrated as a person while words of affirmation celebrated their accomplishments - with little lasting impact on their behavior.

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Finally, when interviewing a managerial candidate, conduct comprehensive reference checks of previous executives, managers, and ICs under their leadership. This is something we often overlook in the selection process. Past performance in managerial roles is very often a signal of success or failure. Talking with former peers in order to obtain a clear picture of the candidate’s strengths and weaknesses will help you weed out leaders who may be damaging to your team.

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Selection Process in Recruitment

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Each of the steps in the recruitment and selection process is there for a reason. Selection process steps should be designed to weed out candidates who are a poor fit for the company culture and to ensure that new employees have the skills necessary to perform their job effectively and contribute to the team.

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Using today's video interview platforms you can systemize, map, score, and track great hires. These tools make the selection process in HRM easy and provide the data you need to make hiring decisions objectively. Over the last 12 months, we've helped our customers lower employee turnover by more than 50%. We've done this by helping them refine their selection process in recruitment and use Ai to identify the best talent for their teams.

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Remember, recruitment and selection processes in HRM are a simple If/Then decision matrix. If the applicant has X, then Y. For example, if the applicant has no experience in Salesforce and that's a requirement to succeed in the role, then we either need to find a better fit or exit them from the process.

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Successful selection processes are the foundation of an effective business. If you bring a curious approach to your hiring process, you'll be able to refine, perfect, and systemize it to ensure you're making sound hiring decisions and onboarding amazing talent in record time.

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If you're currently assessing your recruitment and selection process and have come to the conclusion that it's not getting the results that you'd like, schedule a demo with someone from our team. We'll show you how Pillar has helped customers like High Alpha and Wistia hire top talent that generates results while saving them money.

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