Tips for finding the “right fit” among your job candidates

As anyone who has ever tried to walk a mile in shoes that were too tight can attest, nothing hurts more than a bad fit.

That’s especially true when the bad fit is a person slotted into a job to which they are not suited.

Like the uncomfortable shoe, on the surface you think this will work. The shoe goes on and is designed for walking. It may be well-polished and stylishly presented; it may be smart and new.

In the same vein, the job candidate is skilled for the position at hand, is well-polished and well-presented. He or she is smart (IQ tests confirmed that) and a real breath of fresh air in the areas of eagerness and energy.

But within a fairly short time on the job, the poor fit becomes obvious. This is not the fault of the person or the job, or the human resources professional. Nobody can ever truly observe all the subtleties of life that proclaim one person a “good fit” and another a spur in the heel of the organization. Often you just have to try the person on, like a shoe, and walk with him or her for a while before you get a real feel for how things will go.

Some people fit perfectly, like they were custom-made for the job. These are the people who fall into the rare two percent in every company who drive 98 percent of its impact. Others fit reasonably well and appear as if they will grow into a perfect fit. Some are a little awkward but there is hope they will stretch to fit their role.

Here are three non-traditional methods of helping to secure the right fit in your next job candidate:

1. Pay as much attention to personality as skill. This is not to suggest one personality is better than another, but rather to acknowledge some personalities work better in certain places than others. The gentle nurturing soul sitting before you with the excellent nursing skillset may be the perfect fit to handle the post-operative care unit for cancer patients, whereas the brash, super-confident second candidate with the higher level of experience may not. It’s not all a game of statistics.
2. Ask probing, but allowable questions. You cannot ask people personal questions about past relationships, but if you are trying to determine whether or not they make friends easily and whether or not they keep them, you can get them talking about their life when they are not working. Do they enjoy team sports, do volunteer work, or take part in the local drama group? How would they describe their oldest, dearest friends and what qualities does that friend have that they most appreciate.
3. Check all their social media profiles, not once or twice, but many times. Of course you Google the candidate and look over their Facebook page. But what kinds of photos are they posting on Instagram? What projects do they put on Pinterest? What are they tweeting about? Do you have any mutual connections on LinkedIn? Pick up the phone and check out that connection for an informal reference. The stories people tell in social media are the stories they are using to build their identity. Look at the story as well as the reasons a person would have for telling it.

For more information on finding the “right fit” among your job candidates, contact SkyPrep today!