16 Things You Must Do To Improve Your Quality Of Hire In 2022

In this blog, we will walk you through Things You Must Do To Improve Your Quality Of Hire.

It’s common for companies today to track and reference various recruitment metrics. They help them make smarter hiring decisions. While the most frequently tracked KPIs are:

The source of hire
Time to hire
Applicants per hire

Quality of hire is also gaining importance as a recruitment metric that companies use.

What does improving and measuring the quality of hires mean? It is a challenge that companies have been struggling with for years. That’s because it is not possible using current hiring practices.

The problem relates to too much focus on the following:

Generic skills and competencies.
The use of ill-defined jobs for hiring purposes.
Indirect interviewing and assessment techniques.

(i.e. anything needing some type of statistical means for validation). Accurately measuring the quality of hire requires:

A clear understanding of actual job needs.
Sourcing and recruiting programs are designed to attract the best, not weed out the weak.
Direct measures of past performance.

Quality Of Hire

Before we dive in, it is important that you understand what the quality of hire is. Also, why it’s an important recruitment metric to consider for hiring decisions.

Quality of hire is the value a new hire adds to your company. It is based on how much they contribute to your organization’s long-term success. It is measured in terms of their performance and tenure. The minimum baseline for a quality hire is that:

The value a person creates while employed at your company is greater than the cost of recruiting them.

While the quality of hire is mainly used to measure how successful a new hire becomes. It is also often used as a metric for the success of the recruiting function overall.

Compared to other recruiting KPIs such as cost per hire and time to fill. Quality of hire is considered the KPI that best demonstrates a recruiting department’s strategic value.

This strategic value is clear. It is when you consider top performers contribute more to a company’s productivity. Research has found that:

A top-performing employee generates 4x the output of an average employee.

If your recruiting department can track the quality of hire. Also, it shows how many of your hires become top performers. Then, this is the dream scenario for demonstrating your strategic and financial value to the business.

15 Amazing Tips To Improve Quality Of Hire At Your Company

1. Measuring Current Quality Of Hire

The initial steps to improving the quality of new hires are:

To determine what quality hire looks like for your organization.
To implement processes to effectively measure it.

Organizations typically consider a range of pre-hire and post-hire metrics such as:

Time-to-hire.
Ramp-up rate.
Retention rate.

These factors can be recorded in new-hire scorecards. It can be applied to formulas to calculate the quality of hire for individual employees. Also for specific recruitment methods or sources and overall quality of hire for the organization.

The insights gained from a formalized quality of hire program help to identify weak spots in recruitment processes. It informs how you refine them moving forward.

2. Collaborating With The Hiring Managers

According to a LinkedIn report on data-driven recruiting:

61% of hiring managers believe recruiters do not have proper knowledge of the jobs. They have only a low to moderate understanding of the jobs they are recruiting for.

When it comes to improving your quality of hire, collaboration is crucial. Hiring managers can help to:

Refine job descriptions
Screen candidates
Guide business goals and objectives.

By involving them at each stage of the recruitment process. You will increase the likelihood of hiring the right person for the right role.

3. Collaborating With Company’s Employees

Collaborating with employees during the recruitment process will also improve your hiring. You might choose to directly involve your employees. Maybe via a multi-stage interview process or a panel interview. Or you can simply invite them to give feedback on candidate profiles.

In doing so, you will relieve the pressure on the recruiter to find the perfect candidate. Also, to increase your chances of finding someone who will:

Assimilate naturally into your workplace.
Reduce time-to-hire.
Limit instances of unconscious bias.

Candidates will value the opportunity to meet with current employees. They can ask questions and learn more about your organization. It will ultimately improve the overall candidate experience. Also, it will increase your chances of securing top talent.

4. Providing Accurate Job Descriptions

No new employee wants to start a role to realize that they have been misled by an inaccurate job description. Or a misleading job description.

Failure to write a realistic job description not only results in unhappy and demotivated employees, which can increase your turnover rate, but it also means you’re more likely to hire someone unsuitable, or even under-qualified, for the job.

5. Testing Candidate’s Skills

Skills testing is designed to assess candidates’ skills, abilities, and behavioral profiles. It determines their suitability for a role. Also, the likelihood they will integrate well within a workforce. A recent study found that 82% of companies use some form of skills testing to screen job applicants.

Skill testing can drive efficiencies and reduce costs within the recruitment process. It is by quickly reducing an organization’s talent pool. Also by identifying the most suitable and promising candidates.

Assessments also enable hiring organizations to better distinguish between similar candidates. It also reduces instances of unconscious bias.

6. Inclusive Data Collection

If you are not being methodical and comprehensive with your data collection. It will be difficult to accurately assess your current quality of hire. You can also make meaningful changes.

Compile a list of important pre-hire metrics and post-hire metrics. Consider how best to collect and store data for them.

For qualitative metrics, you will need to think carefully about how to measure success. The following might be useful here:

Employee engagement surveys
Performance reviews
Hiring manager satisfaction surveys

Consider investing in a tech solution. It makes the process of data collection and analysis simple, efficient, and effective. To provide actionable insights, some tools can:

Track employee performance.
Automate assessments.
Consolidate different types of data.

7. Leveraging Artificial Intelligence

AI can be applied in numerous ways throughout the recruitment process. It improves your quality of hire.

For example, machine learning software can be applied to analyze:

Historical resumes
Interviews
Assessments

It helps to draw conclusions about prospective candidates and inform your decision-making.

AI can help you to:

Develop accurate job descriptions.
Target suitable candidates online via “programmatic job advertising”.
Automate elements of the recruitment and onboarding process.
Reduce unconscious bias.
Assess the effectiveness of specific recruitment methods or sources.
Improve the candidate experience.

8. Conducting Skills Gap Analysis

Almost 80% of Americans believe there is a skills gap. Deloitte predicts this could have a $2.5 trillion impact on the US economy within the next decade.

Due to an organization’s struggle to find suitable talent. Unfilled positions can cost businesses upwards of $800,000 per year. This is why it is so important to address the skills gap.

Skills gap analyses can be useful in different ways. It helps you identify what gaps exist between your workforce’s current skill sets and the skills you need. In this way, you can realize your long-term objectives.

You will need to:

Determine your future goals.
Measure your existing workforce.
Make a plan to upskill or retrain your current employees.
Seek out new talent with your desired capabilities.

9. Involving The Team

You should always aim to involve the team you’re hiring for in the staff recruitment process. They know the company day-to-day. They understand where the current skills gaps are better than anyone else, right?

Let them interact with the candidates to see how the dynamic is. They can help assess whether or not they are the right fit for the organization. This will help ensure that you remain completely objective in your hiring efforts. Also, they ensure that you are on the same page as the hiring manager and internal team.

10. Evaluate Candidates’ Organizational Fit

Organizational fit describes the circumstance. Especially when an employee’s professional and personal values align well with their employers.

By assessing candidates, you increase the chances of recruiting the best fit. Who will go on to be a happy, productive, motivated, and loyal employee?

Organizational fit can be assessed via:

Situational judgment tests.
A trial period in the workplace.
Robust reference checking.
Collaborative hiring.
In-person assessment days.

Importantly, hiring people for cultural or organizational fit doesn’t mean building a homogenous workforce. It’s more about finding candidates who share your core values, will be proud to work for you and will be driven to help you realize your long-term business goals.

11. Making The Hiring Process More Equitable

Traditional recruitment methods are often highly subjective. Unstructured interviews, inconsistent processes, rigid pre-screening methods, and biased hiring managers. These can result in bad hires and talent with enormous potential being overlooked or unfairly ruled out.

There are many ways to make your recruitment process more objective. This might include:

Clearly defining job requirements
Conducting structured interviews.
Implementing collaborative hiring.
Using skills assessments.

Consider whether your interview and assessment format might be isolating or alienating certain candidates. Or they may be failing to identify the most appropriately qualified.

12. Anticipating A Paid Trial Day Or Week

Paid work trials provide an opportunity for you. You will get to know your shortlisted job candidates a little better. You can see how they respond to everyday pressures and challenges in your workplace. Also, how they interact with the rest of your team.

It is also a chance for prospective employees to assess you by learning more about the workplace. They will get to know some of their would-be colleagues.

Those who enjoy their experience and perform well are more likely to accept a job offer. They will go on to be high-quality employees. It will reduce your time to hire and improve retention rates.

13. Analyzing Your Screening Process

Pre-screening tools often prove themselves to be invaluable. Especially when it comes to quickly reducing a large talent pool. Also, when driving efficiencies within the recruitment process.

Nonetheless, you need to be careful to ensure your screening criteria are:

Accurate
Fair
Consistently reviewed
Refined.

14. Having A Top-Notch Onboarding Process

A clunky, disorganized, and laborious onboarding process gives a bad first impression to new hires. It can negatively impact your organization’s retention rate.

According to a recent study, one in 10 employees have left a company due to a negative onboarding experience. While 37% of employees said their new manager did not play a critical role in their onboarding experience support.

A good onboarding experience not only makes employees feel welcome. It also enables them to quickly acclimatize to their role. Also, to integrate with new team members. As a result, they will get up to speed far more quickly. They will be motivated to deliver good results.

To improve your onboarding process, consider which elements can be automated to drive efficiencies. Try to provide a personal and warm experience for your new hires. Provide all the resources and support they need to quickly settle into their new role.

15. Offer Competitive Salary And Attractive Benefits

This one could almost go without saying. If you are not willing to pay your employees a competitive salary and offer attractive benefits. You simply will not attract or retain top talent.

Make sure you investigate market rates each time you list a new job opening. If you are unable to compete with the biggest industry players. Consider what other incentives you could offer to new hires. You can also ask them what benefits they would appreciate. This might include flexible working or additional annual leave.

16. Reviewing And Refining Your Results

Improving your organization’s quality of hire is an ongoing and long-term process. You will need to continually evaluate your data. It will help you to determine what’s working and what’s not. You will be prepared to pivot your strategy based on: