Would you like to improve your selection process? You’re in the right place. The selection process for hiring tech talent is almost always predictable: Small talk and then the same old questions. What is your greatest strength? Why do you want to work for us? Where do you see yourself in five years? The candidate says all the right things, her resume checks out, and you hire her as your new cybersecurity analyst the week after.
When she steps out of the room and leaves her laptop unattended, you realize you’ve made the wrong decision.
90 percent of IT managers make bad hires. For cybersecurity professionals like you, recruiting the wrong candidate puts your entire organization at risk.
Here’s how to improve your selection process.
#1. Focus on Skills
It’s easy to become distracted during the hiring process. Sifting through resumes, questioning candidates, and listening to the same old answers gets pretty monotonous pretty quickly. With the clock ticking, it might tempt you to hire the person who answered your questions the best. But the smoothest talker isn’t always the most suitable person for the role.
Dig deeper.
Stay focused, re-evaluate your candidates, and ask yourself these questions:
- Who had the most skills?
- Who had the best skills?
- Who could easily learn new skills?
Forty percent of all IT hiring mistakes are skills-related, so always focus on a candidate’s background, expertise, and experience.
When interviewing a large pool of candidates, the strongest communicator almost always stands out. But the candidate with the right skills is the one most likely to thrive in your organization.
#2. Don’t Make a Hiring Decision Alone
Hiring a new candidate isn’t a decision to make alone, even if you’re a CISO for a Fortune 500. Always have someone else in the interview room with you — not just someone from HR — or, at the very least, run all those resumes by your team.
The problem with going solo is that everyone has prejudices — you might be swayed to a particular personality type during the selection process for hiring workers and not know it — and this can cloud your judgment. Was someone the best person for the job? Or the person you’d most like to have a beer with?
#3. Define the Job Role Before the Interview
Sometimes you might not know what you’re looking for from a candidate because you haven’t defined the job role properly. You think you need a cybersecurity analyst. But you need an information security analyst with a broader skillset.
Sure, job roles evolve as the new hire does, but you should define the parameters of the job before the recruitment and selection process. It makes it easier to find the right person, and you won’t have to find someone else in a month or two. The cost of a bad hire is as much as 30 percent of the employee’s first-year earnings, so get it right the first time.
#4. Slow Down
There’s no rush when hiring a new candidate. Okay, so your CISO wanted a cybersecurity engineer yesterday, and now you’re DMing everyone on LinkedIn who works at McAfee. But it’s better to take your time rather than repeat the entire selection process for hiring tech workers in a few weeks.
“While supporting hiring activities, it is common to hear statements like ‘I need someone quickly, just get me, anyone who knows Excel,’” says Northwestern University. “Too often, hiring managers are so anxious to put a body in a chair that they overlook a candidate’s flaws and hire someone who doesn’t really meet the needs of the job.”
On that note, it’s important that you don’t rush any elements of the recruitment process, whether it’s resume reading or onboarding. You’re more likely to make mistakes, and you’ll be back at square one.
Before You Go
The selection process for hiring tech workers can be a headache, but it’s critical you do things right. Bring in the wrong person, and you could do some serious damage to your organization. The next time you hire, focus on a candidate’s skills, ask your team for help, define a job role before the interview, and just take your time.
There’s a reason tech recruitment companies like Locus exist. These professionals find top tech talent and streamline the entire recruitment process. Whether you’re looking for an IT security, cloud computing, or network management pro, Locus does all the hard work and saves you time and money.
Improve your selection process. Discover your next hire.
