In today’s modern world, your IT department plays a vital role. They are responsible for setting up all of the systems that you use, and making sure they run properly. If something goes wrong with your tech systems, your business could grind to a halt until the issue is resolved. Because of this, it’s obviously important that you hire the right IT people to fill out the department.
To accomplish this, an established and consistent hiring process is essential. When you post a job opening looking for IT people, it’s common to get applicants who aren’t qualified, requiring checks in place during your hiring process to ensure you are weeding out these candidates along the way. These quality checks mean that you not only end up with the right personnel, but that you don’t waste your time trying to find them.
Remove unqualified candidates from consideration early
If you end up hiring someone who ends up not being a fit for the position, you can always let them go at a later date – but there are a few reasons why it’s more beneficial to catch it at the start of the hiring process.
For starters, by not wasting time on unqualified candidates, you are saving your company valuable resources. Not only will you save on the costs to interview and train this person, but if the candidate isn’t working out, you’ll be spending even more resources when you have to start the hiring process all over again.
Second, if you can weed out the bad candidates, you’ll obviously be more likely to find a candidate that is great for your company. Trying to find a great candidate when you have too many applicants can be like looking for a needle in a haystack. You need to remove some of those straws so that the needles become more apparent.
Finally, if you do end up hiring a bad candidate, it could cost you money down the road. Unqualified candidates are more likely to make mistakes, leading to a loss in clients, less efficient employees, or a host of other issues. On the other hand, with a great IT hire, you’ll have more faith that your IT department will continue to run smoothly, and may even improve the systems you are currently using, allowing your company to become more efficient and save money. You can avoid many problems by removing bad candidates early, and only focusing on candidates that are right for the job.
Improving the IT hiring process
In order to get the unqualified candidates out early, you need to have an efficient hiring process. There are several components to this, and you should look at each one to gauge where your own company can improve.
First, you need to know exactly what you are looking for. It’s hard to say a candidate is unqualified for a job if you don’t know what that job actually needs. You should take some time to map out your ideal employee and the qualifications that they should have. You can then use this as a blueprint during the hiring phase to ensure potential candidates are measuring up.
Once you start getting applications in, you’ll want to start screening them. You likely won’t have the time or resources to interview each and every applicant, so you need to start whittling it down before that phase begins. You can do this by examining resumes and eliminating those that don’t have the right training, knowledge, or experience. It’s much faster to read through a resume than to interview a candidate, so use this time to remove anyone that is clearly not qualified for the job you’re describing.
The next steps are the interview phase, and any further assessments your company may wish to issue to applicants. Which order you do this in will depend on your own preferences, but there are a few ways to improve both. You should read up on how to conduct better interviews, and take some time to craft questions that deal specifically with the job at hand. While you can always conduct a follow-up interview with more detailed questions, the goal here is to get a sense of each candidate and determine if they should make it to the next round (if applicable). Again, you’re trying to eliminate unqualified candidates as early as possible, and the interview phase is a great time to do this.
As for assessments, you should test your IT candidates on the technology stack(s) they’ll be using in their day-to-day job duties. These assessments could be as simple as a 5-minute technical phone screen, or a timed evaluation comprised of technical questions. You could also give your candidates written tests, which might ask questions about how they would solve specific problems or handle different work-related situations. By giving all of your candidates the same assessments, you can better compare them against one another, ultimately allowing you to make a better decision.
Some companies choose to conduct interviews first, and then give assessments to anyone who passes the interview phase. Other companies prefer to give assessments first, and only interview candidates that do well on them. Both methods are valid, and will depend on your own preferences and the resources you have at hand.
Your time is valuable – don’t waste it
When considering your company’s resources for hiring IT employees, it’s important to include time investment. The old saying is true; time is money, and you need to make sure you are using it wisely. Failure to eliminate unqualified IT candidates from consideration during the hiring process is a waste of time not only now, but down the road when the employee doesn’t work out. This is true for every employee you hire, but it is even more important for IT hires.
Your IT hires play a large role in ensuring your day-to-day operations run smoothly. Take the time now to perfect your hiring process, so that you end up only considering qualified IT candidates for a position. You’ll have less headaches down the road, and your company will be better off for it in the long run.
