Organisations which have the ability to attract, recruit and retain members of staff tend to see more positive overall outcomes, from productivity to staff morale. Selection and assessment is important for both the organisation and the candidate to ensure that the right people are selected for the right roles. To ensure best practice in selection and assessment see our 10 top tips below:
1. Develop a Clear Job Description
Make sure that your job description is reflective of the role itself including the range of responsibilities. If not you could risk attrition, where new starters leave when the role is different to their expectations.
2. Attract your Candidates
In order to receive the best applicants you should reach out and attract as many people in the target market as possible, this can involve marketing through means such as social media. The best practice in attraction methods reaches a diverse pool of people, so consider the methods you use and who you will be reaching.
3. Ensure a Fair Practice
All forms of selection and assessment should be fair and give all candidates an equal chance to be considered for the position. In order to achieve this assessment should be objective and free from bias. All assessors should be trained in order for the process to be consistent between individual candidates.
4. Discover New Talent
Considering applicants of all levels, including those with little/no experience is important. You can offer comprehensive training and development schemes to attract new talent into the organisation, sometimes the best skills are not achieved through experience, but attitude and drive.
5. Use Assessment Centres
Assessment centres should follow best practice to ensure consistency, objectivity, and avoid any ‘embarrassing’ mistakes on the day. A few of these involve; completing a full design and schedule of the centre, ensuring that all assessors are professional and prepared for the day, and carrying out an evaluation after the assessment centre to identify what went well and what could have been improved.
6. Use Valid Methods
Take time to consider the methods that you will use to measure each competency of the role, and make sure that each method chosen is contributing to measuring at least one competency. If you can’t justify what it adds, don’t use it.
7. Retain current staff
As well as recruiting new employees it is important to retain current staff, the best working environments often have the lowest staff turnover rates. You can offer recognition schemes to help your employees feel valued, also competitive benefit packages and perks add to reasons for employees to stay.
8. Involve Your Employees
Your current employees can be really valuable during the recruitment process; they can give insight into how they think the candidate would fit in with the team dynamics and perform in the role. This is also empowering for your current employees and their contribution reinforces their value to the organisation.
9. Ensure an Enriching Experience
Remember, when interviewing or holding an assessment centre the candidate will also be making the decision of whether they would like to work for you or not. This is a great chance for you to sell the company, even if they don’t receive a job offer you want them to walk away with a positive image of the company and they may become a client/customer in the future.
10. Offer Comprehensive Feedback
Feedback is an essential part to any selection and assessment process; it should be constructive and honest, giving the candidate areas to improve on for future opportunities. You should also recognise their strengths and recommend areas to take forward.