Hiring employees is a high-stakes operation. When you don’t take it seriously, you not only waste time and money on the failed new hire, but everyone in your organization can feel fatigued by the constant turnover.
At The Metiss Group, we’ve spent the past 28 years perfecting the hiring process so we could teach it to business owners like you. But our process doesn’t come without challenges.
From managing the temptation to go with gut feelings over hard criteria to understanding the time investment required, we’ll walk you through five common hurdles hiring teams face with The Hiring Process Coach™—and share actionable insights to keep your hiring journey on track.
Problem 1: Hiring managers fall in love with a candidate who’s a bad match
The Hiring Process Coach™ requires hiring managers to trust the process.
This can be difficult when a candidate has a magnetic personality. “I could so hang with this guy!” the hiring manager says. “He’s the kind of guy you could grab a beer with.”
But this may not be the ideal personality for the role you’re hiring. You need someone who can execute the job functions you’ve outlined. Having fun at happy hour won’t be enough.
On the other hand, some hiring managers fall in love with their hard skills and experience. Maybe the candidate has industry-specific experience or went to a prestigious university.
Maybe they have experience using skills that are way more complicated than what your job requires — they won’t use those skills in your open role, but it’d be great to have in case you need those skills someday, right?
Wrong. When you’re drooling over a candidate’s background, you need to ask yourself: How is this background going to specifically apply to the job you need them to do? If they’re not going to get to use those skills, they could become bored in their role.
Solution: Have someone else on your team do the candidate screening
If you’re the type of hiring manager or business owner who falls in love with magnetic personalities and impressive resumes, a good solution would be to have someone else on your team do the initial candidate screening.
We can teach The Hiring Process Coach™ to any person on your team. You don’t have to have one hiring manager covering the entire process.
So when you have an unbiased, professional team member conducting the phone screens, you’ll be less likely to fall in love with candidates who won’t make a good fit.
Problem 2: The Hiring Process Coach™ won’t source candidates
The Hiring Process Coach™ isn’t a headhunting service. Although your coach will help you screen, assess, and select the ideal candidate, you’ll have to be the one to post on job boards and ask for referrals.
Solution: We’ll help you attract the right candidates
Although we won’t tap into our network to send candidates your way, we’ll help you learn ways to find quality candidates.
It begins in the definition phase. You’ll get crystal clear on the job description and ideal candidate, which will increase your chances of the ideal candidate filling out a job application.
We’ll also teach you how to ask for referrals from your center of influence, who can give you the highest quality leads. You won’t just find candidates who fit the hard skills, you’ll also find people who match your culture.
Problem 3: You don’t have time for The Hiring Process Coach™
The Hiring Process Coach™ takes time. It typically takes one to two months to hire a good employee.
The first phase, the Definition phase, takes six hours over three sessions. During this phase, you build out a job scorecard and define the perfect person for the role, and all stakeholders need to be present.
And for some people, six hours feels like an eternity. Especially when you multiply that by 5-10 stakeholders.
Solution: Understand how upfront work speeds up the process
We get it. You need someone hired yesterday! But when you slow down and define the role, the rest of the process will go much more smoothly.
You won’t waste time interviewing the duds, because they’ll become far more apparent.
You’ll be able to spot a superstar much more quickly, too. You’ll have defined exactly what you want from the beginning, so you won’t need to wait and compare the superstar to other candidates.
You’ll also save time for your executive team. Since they were involved in the definition phase, they won’t need to be involved in the rest of the process until it comes time to hire.
If you truly don’t believe you have time, we recommend hiring a fractional role. Then you can slow down and take the time you need to hire a superstar.
Problem 4: Small businesses don’t have an HR department
Some of our small business clients think they can’t use The Hiring Process Coach™ because they don’t have a human resources department.
Since our process is to teach you how to fish instead of giving you the fish, they think it’s a problem they don’t have a clear person to teach.
Solution: Teach The Hiring Process Coach™ to your culture champion
You probably have someone at your company who lives and breathes your culture. It doesn’t have to be a senior executive.
If you have someone on the frontline who is passionate about your culture, who better to be the gatekeeper for your organization? They’ll have a sixth sense for good-fit candidates.
They can learn The Hiring Process Coach™ program in its entirety; then, when they’re ready to give a candidate an offer, they can hand the reigns to an executive.
Problem 5: Hiring managers don’t prioritize onboarding
So you’ve made it through the hiring process and hired a great worker. You show them their desk and say, “OK, time to get to work! Go hit the ground running!”
Surprise: you might have hired a worker, but a human being showed up. And humans need to be onboarded.
Solution: Invest in the onboarding process
The final stage of The Hiring Process Coach™, the Onboarding stage, cannot be overlooked.
Your behavior expert will help the new hire and their supervisor understand each other’s communication styles and leadership styles. They can then leverage each other’s strengths and avoid landmines when communicating.
Your expert will also help the new hire understand they aren’t perfect. They’ll learn how to accept support from others and prioritize their development.
This phase will shorten the learning curve and build a foundation for trust on both sides. But it doesn’t work unless the onboarding process is taken seriously.
In The Hiring Process Coach™, the onboarding process lasts through the first 90 days after a new hire has been made.
Your next steps with The Hiring Process Coach™
Remember, your goal isn’t just to find a fun teammate or someone with an extraordinary background. It’s about identifying the candidate who best fits the job and your company culture. Falling in love with the wrong attributes can lead to costly mis-hires, dissatisfaction, and turnover.
When you go through The Hiring Process Coach™ program and avoid these common challenges, you’ll know each candidate is evaluated for the qualities that matter most for success in your organization.
At The Metiss Group, we have spent the last 28 years perfecting the hiring process and keeping our clients from making terrible hiring decisions.
Now that you understand the problems clients typically face with The Hiring Process Coach™, the next step is to schedule a call with one of our behavior experts.
Not ready to jump on the phone? Download a free Job Scorecard to better understand the definition phase of The Hiring Process Coach™.