Best Hiring Practices In 2023

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Best hiring practices are the generally accepted best way to go about hiring new employees. There are several different techniques, tricks, and methods that are considered best practices, and it’s best to incorporate several of them into your hiring process. Most of these practices involve trying to see the candidate as an entire individual and how they fit in at your business.

Some of this is going to relate to the organizational culture, as well as the nature of the position being hired for. However, it’s best to look at the candidate as a whole and try to see if they will work well in a position. That may mean you hire someone who doesn’t have all the qualifications on paper but can make up for it in other ways.

Key Takeaways:

• Best practices are methods and techniques that are broadly accepted across a field. Sometimes they are recommended by an authority, though in hiring, that usually isn’t the case.

• It’s important to have a standardized hiring process that looks at the entirety of the person you’re hiring in terms of both their hard and soft skills.

• Personalizing the process as much as possible is helpful when hiring. Getting a new job is stressful, as is having a new person start in a position – trying to humanize the process helps smooth a lot of that over.

What Is a Best Practice?

A best practice is a method or technique that is widely accepted by experts in a particular field. As a rule, something becomes known as a best practice due to the fact that it generates consistent positive results. There are best practices in many different fields, though most people would likely be familiar with the term in terms of either healthcare or human resources.

While in most cases, best practices are ones that are broadly accepted across the field, in some cases, they may be determined by an authority or board of experts. That is often the case in medicine, for instance.

Best practices aren’t static. They will change and evolve over time as more is learned in a particular field. That’s why it’s important to stay up to date on the current best practices and be willing to shift as more information becomes available.

Best Practices for Hiring

In hiring, there are several different techniques that help to both streamline the hiring process and hire better candidates. That’s why they’re considered to be best practices. Here are some examples of best practices to follow when looking to hire a new team member.

• Have a standardized hiring process. This is important for several reasons. The first is that having a process helps hiring someone go much more smoothly. It can also help with meeting legal requirements, such as nondiscrimination laws, as well as allowing you to tell the candidate what they should expect.

  This doesn’t mean that the process has to be rigid. However, it’s best to have an idea of what you’ll need from your candidates and when. It allows for each person to go through the proper process, which helps prevent accusations of nepotism and favoritism, in addition to making sure each applicant is thoroughly vetted.

• Know what your organization needs. Before going into the hiring process, it helps to know what you’re looking for. Know what positions are open – or are soon to be open – and prioritize those. It’s also good to know what traits you think are necessary and what would help someone fit in with the organization’s culture.

• Consider your job requirements. While it’s not a bad technique to consider your dream candidate for a position, asking for all of those qualifications in your requirements can end up limiting how many applications you get.

  Remember that job seekers spend a considerable amount of time on each application, and they’re looking for a high chance of success.

  Some requirements lists will be split into “need to have and preferred”. That’s a way to list your dream qualifications without discouraging too many applications. It’s also important if you want to up the diversity of your organization.

  Women and other minorities are much less likely to apply to a job where they don’t meet all of the requirements.

• Be realistic in your job descriptions. The job description is a very important aspect of hiring. Candidates will read the description in order to get an idea of duties and expectations. If it’s vague or something that one person couldn’t possibly do by themselves, then a lot of candidates will pass on applying.

  It’s also important in terms of the interview process. If candidates are unsure about exactly what they’ll be expected to do, then that can cause issues down the line. Even if you do manage to hire someone, the job may not get done properly.

• Look internally. In general, most organizations look externally when they need someone to fill a position. It’s important to remember that you likely have many qualified people already working for you. Prioritizing promotions over external hires has the added benefit of building loyalty and giving your employees a clear career path.

  Those are both important in terms of upping productivity, but it also aids in employee retention. Holding onto employees you already have is much less expensive, less disruptive, and more productive than hiring new ones.

• Make use of referrals. If you can’t find anyone internally, then requesting referrals from your staff is another way to go. Every member of your team has a social network, meaning that collectively they know a lot of different people. Their personal knowledge of the candidates can help when looking for a culture fit or the right mix of traits for a job.

• Don’t rush. It’s important not to race to hire someone just to fill the role. Don’t rush, of course, as your candidates may get tired of waiting for the process to finish. But finding the right person for the role takes time, and you shouldn’t be afraid of that.

• Communicate with the candidate. Keeping the candidate informed is an important part of the process. You want them to know what to expect in terms of when interviews will be scheduled and when an offer might be forthcoming. If they’re a candidate that you’re truly interested in hiring, then it also makes your interest clear.

  Remember that the majority of job seekers aren’t just applying to one position and then waiting to hear back. For one thing, many jobs don’t even notify applicants if they choose to pass, and for another, they may be waiting on another offer and want to know what to tell the other hiring manager.

• Look for candidates that are driven. In many ways, personality traits are more important than hard skills. Hard skills can be taught, but it’s not really possible to teach someone to become a high achiever. You want to look for candidates with drive and ambition, as they’ll put more of themselves into their jobs.

  Highly driven workers are usually also interested in promotions and a career path, which means that they can be wooed by a clear career progression when working for your organization.

• Prioritize candidates who do their research. This is another skill that’s difficult to teach. If you get a candidate that has clearly researched you and your company, that shows interest and dedication. It’s especially important if you’re hiring for a position that requires attention to detail and being willing to look things up, such as an engineer.

• Remember that hiring isn’t just one way. As you’re assessing the candidates, they’re also assessing you and your organization. Do your best to show them what working for you would be like and what you have to offer them – beyond just a paycheck.

• Don’t be afraid of change. Your hiring process should change over time. Not rapidly, necessarily, but as the company grows and changes, the way that it hires will also need to change. Keep abreast of best practices, new technologies, and new techniques.

• Consider what candidates are looking for. If you’re struggling to get applicants or if a lot of good candidates are turning down your offer, then it may be time to reconsider what you’re offering. Even if you aren’t having these problems, it’s a good idea to consider the hiring process from the other side every now and then.

  This will also depend on what demographic you’re looking at. If you want to hire younger workers, then offering remote work options and an emphasis on work-life balance is a plus – as well as paid parental leave. In general, the better your benefits, the more people will want to work for you.

• Try to personalize it when possible. This may seem to clash with having a hiring process, but it’s important to be flexible when you can. Employees want to be treated like people rather than numbers. That means that if you can make an effort to personalize the process, that’ll make the whole process more appealing.

• Be aware of nondiscrimination laws. Remember that there are laws governing a lot of these processes. If you follow the above suggestions, you’re very unlikely to run afoul of nondiscrimination laws, but it’s best to know what they are in advance.

Best Hiring Practices FAQ

1. How can you make the hiring process more efficient?

   Having a set hiring process is a good way to make the hiring process more efficient. Once you’ve come up with a process, it’s good to look it over again and see if there’s a way to streamline it. You don’t want it to be so quick that you miss red flags or fail to look into the candidate, but you also don’t want it to drag.

2. What should you look for when hiring someone?

   There are a few things to look for when hiring a new employee: the first is whether their hard skills match the requirements for the job; the second is if they’re a good cultural fit; and the last is their soft skills, such as whether they have strong interpersonal skills.

   Despite the order they were listed in, soft skills and cultural fit are often more important in the long run. Unless the job you’re hiring for is very specific and hard to train for, it’s often better to hire a candidate with strong, soft skills and then train them for the position rather than hiring someone with the right hard skills that isn’t a good fit.

3. How can hiring practices be improved?

   Hiring practices can be improved by improving the screening process. This often includes both the interview, which gives an idea of soft skills, as well as skill demonstrations, which show how they’re likely to do their job.

References

1. U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission – Best Practices for Employers and Human Resources/EEO Professionals

Author

Di Doherty

Di has been a writer for more than half her life. Most of her writing so far has been fiction, and she’s gotten short stories published in online magazines Kzine and Silver Blade, as well as a flash fiction piece in the Bookends review. Di graduated from Mary Baldwin College (now University) with a degree in Psychology and Sociology.