Hiring a new employee isn’t just bringing in some freelance technician to do some work for a few days, it’s adding a new member to a team and a new contributor to the company culture. They need to possess not only the right skills and experience, but the right attitude, work ethic, and sense of humor as well. Unfortunately, all too often hiring managers and recruiters write job listings as dry lists of skills and requirements paired with equally dry lists of benefits without any clue to the candidates as to how well they will fit as people into the new position. This not only makes their jobs harder, forcing them to screen more applicants than necessary, it also makes onboarding more difficult as candidates come in with no idea the kind of environment and work procedures they’ll be dealing with.

1. Onboarding Challenges

So you’ve found a candidate with the perfect combination of skills and experience. For the hiring manager, this seems like a dream come true because their search is finally over, but now the job of orientation and onboarding is passed to HR and their new team. How much the new employee already understands about procedure and company culture can make a huge difference in the amount of time and effort it takes to get them up to speed on fulfilling their new role in the company. Some steps like signing paperwork are inevitable even if they understand their position perfectly while others can be a major hassle if the new employee is unprepared. From desk assignment to professional break room humor, there are dozens of things they will need to get used to in the work environment.

2. Early Introduction Means Easier Onboarding

Where exactly is it written in stone that job descriptions and interview processes need to keep candidates in the dark about what it’s really like to be an employee? Perhaps the first round of interviews may be about screening out those who are unqualified or uncommitted, but after that, it’s a matter of finding the candidate who will fit best into the new role as an employee and team member. The deeper you get into the screening process, the more beneficial it becomes to start introducing candidates to the company culture. This means that when you do finally hire someone, they will already have an excellent idea of how to fit into their new position and what kind of both work and interpersonal behaviors will be expected of them. This can significantly reduce the amount of time it takes them to adapt and become productive once they are finally on the payroll.

3. Screening With the Team

If your position involves joining a pre-existing team, how they work with that team will matter a great deal. Rather than blindly hoping that the candidate you choose will mesh well, you have every reason to run a few litmus tests with the team themselves to see which of your final contestants have the right personality and attitude for enjoyable productive teamwork. Consider letting the team or a few key representatives conduct one of the final interviews, review work examples, or even pass joke notes back and forth to check for matching sense of humor. When your new hire’s close co-workers are happy to have them, onboarding will be more natural and enjoyable for everyone.

Find More Candidates That Will Onboard Quickly

Whether you’re hiring for assistants, engineers, managers, or executives, onboarding is often much more of a hassle than it needs to be. Rather than leaving everything to drop-shock immersion, you can start some of the onboarding processes during hiring so that when a candidate is finally chosen, they will be ready to hit the ground running. For more helpful information about how to optimize your interviewing process, contact us today, or check out this blog post.

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