There are times in any business’s existence when hiring becomes an urgent issue. Maybe the busy season is approaching and you’re going to be short-handed. Or one of your best employees moved on and you’re having trouble finding someone who can step into their incredibly competent shoes. Or perhaps you just lost all your seasonal student employees and shifts have gotten more than a little tight while you look for replacements.
Whatever the reason, it can be tempting to hire someone new, especially in a rush. You pull up old resumes of candidates who didn’t quite make it through last time and open your doors for new applications just to see who turns up. However, if no one is available to do the job, don’t give in to the temptation to just quickly hire someone. The cost of amateurs is higher than you might realize.
Professionalism Makes All the Difference
As an experienced employer trying to fix a staffing crunch with a collection of less than perfect resumes, you’re probably thinking that perhaps one of these candidates could at least be trained to do the jobs you need to be done. Maybe they can but there’s a reason hiring normally takes rounds of interviews and formal screenings before a candidate becomes an employee. One of the major reasons to not quickly hire is to determine not just the skills and apparent attitude of an employee but their ability to show up on time and remain professional as well.
Even if you’re hiring for a lower-level position, the last thing you want is to accidentally bring someone onto the team who can’t maintain a proper work ethic, respect the rules, or hold themselves together when trusted with any real responsibility.
Can-Do, No Show
Every amateur employee is either a trap or a diamond in the rough. But without proper screening, you have no way of knowing which is which. One of the most common traps that almost every hiring manager winds up falling for at least once is the Can-Do, No Show. This kind of employee seems enthusiastic on the phone and handles the one interview fantastically. You quickly hire them because they’re gung-ho, seem to really want the job, and comport themselves with what seems to be professionalism… right up until they’re on shift.
Then, suddenly, they’re the laziest most absentee employee you’ve ever had. Problems are always someone else’s concern or they start showing up late. Eventually, they might stop showing up at all. What seemed like the perfect hire turns out to be worse than simply leaving the position open.
Fake It ‘Till You Break It
The next type of recruit that seems like a good idea at the time is the Fake It ‘Till You Break It. These employees often mean well, but they just don’t know what they’re doing. Maybe they lied about skills and experience on their resume. Or, perhaps, they simply volunteered to take on more tasks and your overworked staff was glad to let them. The problem occurs when incompetence finally catches up and they break something important.
Tearful and Terrible
Finally, there are stealth cryers. They can be sweet or crabby, capable or problematic, but at some point, something will go wrong on their watch or a mistake will be made. When confronted, rather than taking responsibility, apologizing, or cleaning up the mess they will instead either burst into tears or blame everyone but themselves in a fit of infantile rage. This is bad enough but the real problem is that they seem to think the emotional outburst is an excuse not to actually handle the situation. It just goes downhill from there.
Learn More About Hiring Quickly
A lot of important things are discovered during a complete recruiting process and job skills are only a part of it. While you can train the intelligent and eager, if you quickly hire someone, you’ll miss when a candidate lacks the one critical trait to becoming a good employee: professionalism. This is one of the many reasons why hard-working businesses rely on talented recruiters and high-end screening techniques to find not only the most on-paper qualified but also the most temperamentally suited person for each open position. For more information on how to find the right professionals for your business and avoid the follies of incautious hiring, please contact us today! Otherwise, check out this blog post for more tips.
