Her Magazine is New Zealand’s only women’s business lifestyle magazine! Her Magazine highlights the achievements of successful and rising New Zealand businesswomen. Her Magazine encourages a healthy work/life balance.
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her inform Selection Checklist Essentials for bringing on new recruits YOU WANT THE BEST people in your team because with the right leadership these are the team members who will help you achieve your business goals. Finding the best people for your business is seldom achieved through good luck alone. What can you do to ensure that your HR processes will help you get the right people with the right skills, at the right time? 1. Workforce Planning Once you have devised your business goals for the next year and beyond, you need to work out what your 'people' needs are for the business. Undertake an audit of the skills, experience, knowledge and abilities of your current team. Identify the gaps between your existing requirements and your future needs – focus on the gaps when creating job descriptions, person specifications and when undertaking the hiring process. If you know there is a skill shortage, ensure that you have an effective recruitment strategy in place. You do not want your business success to be hindered due to the inability to find the right people when you need them onboard. 2. Job Descriptions and Person Specifications Every time you have a vacancy within your business, review the incumbent's job description and ask yourself if their job description is an accurate reflection of what the new job holder will be required to do. Whether the position is new or existing, ensure that the functions of the job holder are aligned to your strategic business goals. If certain tasks have no bearing on the success of 48 | December/January 2012 | HER MAGAZINE the business objectives, ask yourself if these functions really are necessary? Ensure that the job description clearly states the purpose of the role and be specific in terms of how you would like functions to be performed, i.e., answer the telephone within three rings in a polite and professional manner, etc. When preparing your person specification focus on the skills, abilities, experience and knowledge required (essential or desirable) of the new job holder – and don't ignore these during the interview process. 3. Interviews Take time to prepare interview questions for your candidates. The questions you ask each candidate should be the same, by doing this you will increase objectivity and it will enable you to make a fairer comparison of responses between candidates. Ask competency based questions – these focus on the competencies that are required of the ideal job holder, i.e. attention to detail – 'can you give me an example of what you do in your current role that shows how you minimise errors in your work?' You want your candidates to tell you how they would behave in a particular situation whether the competency is listening skills, working under pressure or team work. Past performance is often a predictor of future performance, therefore a candidate's response