Staffing Advice

When working with staffing agencies or private placement service providers, hiring managers are relieved of the task of digging through the resumes of a countless number of candidates. Working with an agency that understands the job market can help any business meet the best candidates suited for their company.  Agencies have a better idea of the ideal job seeker, because of their constant contact with them. By taking time to understand the needs and work style of their clients, agencies are able to find job candidates that are not only qualified, but fit the corporate culture of the company that they are working for. While businesses both large and small are busy running their companies, staffing agencies are able focus on the skills, potential, and effectiveness of future employees.

When interviewing there are a few common laws: they should dress to impress (no matter what the job title is), they should offer a warm greeting and lastly, what people tend to overlook, they should make eye contact! When being interviewed in person the applicant is selling themselves to you, a future employer, and not being able to see their eyes should be an automatic red flag. It is almost like looking at a house but not being able to see the inside of it. Interviews are used to get the major first impression and sometimes the last.

Every interview should be viewed by the applicant like it is their dream job and no interview is less important than another. So next time you have a face-to-face sit down with a future employee, make follow this simple step: see if the prospective employee makes direct eye contact!  After all, they are the windows to the soul!

When working with staffing agencies or private placement service providers, hiring managers are relieved of the task of digging through the resumes of a countless number of candidates. Working with an agency that understands the job market can help any business meet the best candidates suited for their company.  Agencies have a better idea of the ideal job seeker, because of their constant contact with them. By taking time to understand the needs and work style of their clients, agencies are able to find job candidates that are not only qualified, but fit the corporate culture of the company that they are working for. While businesses both large and small are busy running their companies, staffing agencies are able focus on the skills, potential, and effectiveness of future employees.

Since the new state of the economic market is creating a new type of job seeker, the job pool is becoming consistently flooded with qualified candidates.  Needless to say competition is fierce, starting from fresh faced and energetic recent college graduates to more experienced workers with 5 plus yeas of job experience.  Employers have to be ready for this. A new market also means a new way of finding employees, and developing a new criterion in which to better judge employee potential. Companies have successfully found new employees by personal references and employee referrals, and also through the use of staffing and employment agencies. Though using staffing agencies may seem to be an old tool of the trade, agencies are reinventing the screening process and building new structures in order to also adapt to the nuances of the current economic market.

Often it is forgotten that employers, as well as job seekers, feel the pressure of a stressful economic market. One minute the company is letting workers go, due to a down turn in the market; and the next they need employees to help work through the fledgling rise in the market.  It’s a constant back and forth. How can a company be prepared for their staffing needs? In a market saturated with many right candidates, how can a business hope to find the best person to fit into their business environment?

There are many methods that hiring managers use to fill vacancies in their companies.  Turning first to Internet databases and online advertising for individual application submissions, businesses can often become overwhelmed by job seeker responses.  Not having a proper screening process or knowing exactly what you need in the workplace can lead employers to making the wrong decisions about the people that should be hired.

Look for any details that should be on the résumé, that are conspicuously missing: dates, years, computer skills, etc.  This will give you a clue as to what the person is trying to camouflage!  When a person leaves all computer skills off their résumé, this may indicate that they are not comfortable with computer software.   ASK QUESTIONS!  If a person has a big gap of dates on their résumé, this is also something you want to inquire about.  Many candidates do their best to put themselves in the best possible light to get a job.  It is your job to ask all the right questions, so you know exactly what the employees’ abilities are BEFORE you hire them.

Applicants submit documents for employment these days that can barely be called résumés!  The résumés are missing pertinent information, and are fraught with misspellings and grammar mistakes.  You review résumés, you should look at it as an indication of that persons’ presentation.  Is it neat, error free and easy to read?  If not, toss it out!

Chances are that the person is careless with regard to their professional life and they will carry that onto the job!  Let that be a red flag for you

When hiring, it is important to have a mix of different personalities within your firm! If you are running a company with all Type-A personalities, I can tell you right now, you had better know CPR, because someone is bound to have a heart attack. Conversely, if everyone in the office is mellow and laid back- you won’t be in business very long. If you get a variety of people with different personalities and levels of intensity, the company can operate at both a peaceful and prosperous level.

It is very important, when hiring, to understand what you will need your new employee to do. “As much as possible” is NOT a good job description!

If you tell the employee specific responsibilities when hiring you will always get better results. Many employers think that if they give a list of responsibilities to a new employee, they are limiting themselves to that job description. Not true. It is just understood that the job description will be expanded upon as they grow with the job. However, if you hold back on all the specifics you are setting yourself up for misunderstandings down the line and wasted time with an employee who is not the right fit!