3 WAYS TO INCLUDE YOUR TEAM IN THE HIRING PROCESSTips, suggestions, and inspiration from GennGlobal

INTRODUCTION

When beginning the hiring process for a vacant position, remember that you don’t have to make hiring decisions entirely by yourself.

Instead, consider including your team in the hiring process.

Including your team in this process can make the entire process easier for everyone involved, and could result in hiring candidates that fit very well into your company.

Next, we will discuss a few ways that your team members can help you during the hiring process.

ASK YOUR TEAM WHAT THEY NEED

You might ask how tasks will be shuffled around and how the new hire will fit into this plan, or figure out what skills your team desires to have so that you can find a candidate who fills that role.

Your team’s input about what they feel they need is incredibly valuable. It is important to receive feedback straight from your team about what they believe they need to succeed, as they likely know better than anyone else. However, it is also important to consider your own point of view for assessing your team’s needs.

HAVE YOUR SPECIALISTS WEIGH IN

You probably have specialists, or team members with a specific expertise. These team members can be valuable during the hiring process because they can provide an expert opinion on the skills of potential new hires.

One way to include these specialists is to seek out their input about the competency of a job candidate related to the specialists’ area of expertise. This might involve reviewing cover letters, writing samples, or other application materials and providing their expert opinion.

This will give you a better idea of the candidate’s initial starting level of ability and perhaps even room for growth.

THE INTERVIEW AND COMPANY CULTURE

Lastly, you can get your team members involved in the actual interview.

You might try splitting up your interview questions and divide them between your team members.

The benefit here is that you can see how the candidate interacts with others (your team members) during the interview—you can clearly focus on just this aspect, instead of worrying about asking a follow-up question.

Additionally, you can have your team get together afterwards while the experience is fresh in everyone’s mind and brainstorm together to gain a more complete view of the candidate and how the interview went.