This Is How You Separate Good Hires From Bad

Checking applicant backgrounds can be time-consuming and costly for a company but this is one of the skills needed by an effective HR professional. Most recruiters today not only look for certain skill sets and knowledge to hire an individual, but they also look into the person’s soft skills including attitude and character.

Top companies achieve success by determining the personality of their most qualified employees. While skills are a great measure to see if a person knows what to do for a job description, it’s also best to understand that information can always be taught. Kalibrr has a checklist to help you separate the good hires from the bad. You can access the full checklist here but while we’re on the topic, let’s discuss some of the key points of a great hire.

The Greater Good

A well-written resume contains action words that can help recruiters see into an individual’s work ethic and personality just from one glance of a document. There are keyword green flags to look for in a potential hire from just scanning and finding these terms on their CV or resume. You can also notice this during the interview by analyzing the answers of your prospective employee.

• Action-oriented: Employees who take the initiative to maximize the opportunities given to them can lead to success and mold confidence while generating new ideas. From the get-go, these are individuals who are not afraid to ask questions and are constantly looking for ways to effectively and efficiently do the task assigned to them.
• Detail-oriented: It’s always good to hire people with attention to detail to minimize mistakes and misunderstandings in deliverables and in the workplace. It’s crucial to know whether aspiring employees can spot errors in their work for them to be able to carry out tasks productively.
• Enthusiastic and passionate: Individuals who are enthusiastic and apply their passion to their work enjoy the assignments given to them. While having a decent salary to match with the job is a great motivation to perform well, knowing that they are working towards career advancement and other end-goals will cultivate a happy and buzzing work environment.
• Team-player: Even if there are tasks assigned individually to an employee, there will be instances where company members will have to work together. Make sure to see signs of good communication skills and past experiences of effective cooperation in your future employee’s profile.

Things to avoid

We all want to see great qualities in the applicants we screen. Whether their resume is dripping with accolades or their interview went well, some tell-tale signs of a bad hire might manifest in ways you might not even notice. Now that you have a short guide of what a good hire possesses, here are some elements to consider that may look like a red flag to you as a recruiter.

• No longevity with past employers: If an individual has lots of work experience listed, look closely if they stayed for a while in their jobs to contribute in the best way they can to the company they were in before. Job hoppers could be indicative of a lack of commitment or a poor job performance history.
• No pre-interview research: An aspiring employee looking to enter your company will do significant research before entering the interview room with a recruiter. If they cannot give you a straight answer as to what attracted them to your firm or which services propelled them to apply to your company, they might have not researched enough about your organization. It could mean that they are not organized enough to prepare for the interview itself.
• Lack of attention: Even in the hiring process of the pandemic, online job interviews can give you a glimpse of a prospective hire’s interest in your company through body language, eye contact, and overall etiquette during the meeting. If they look or sound bored and disinterested, they might just be looking for a paycheck and not a rewarding career in your firm.
• A demanding attitude: Standing up for your skills and achievements is commendable because you know your worth, your limits, and your abilities. Seeing this feat in an applicant is not necessarily a bad thing. The line is drawn when they issue ultimatums before getting an interview or a job offer. It’s a likely sign that they can be hard to work with and not a team player.

You can train an employee on your product or service, but you can’t train someone to have integrity, resiliency, self-confidence, and work ethic.

Kalibrr is a recruitment technology company that aims to transform how candidates find jobs and how companies hire talent. Placing the candidate experience at the center of everything it does, we continue to attract the best talent from all over, with more than 5.5 million professionals and counting. Kalibrr ultimately connects these talents to companies in search of their next generation of leaders.

The only end-to-end recruitment solutions provider in Southeast Asia, Kalibrr is headquartered in Makati, Philippines, with offices in San Francisco, California, and Jakarta, Indonesia. Established in 2012, it has served over 18,000 clients and is backed by some of the world’s most powerful start-up incubators and venture capitalists. These include Y Combinator, Omidyar Network, Patamar Capital, Wavemaker Partners, and Kickstart Ventures.

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