Most of us have heard of disaster preparedness, for example getting your bag of items ready in case of emergency.  When you are hiring new staff, you also need to prepare with a “toolkit” of sorts so that you are prepared to find, select, interview, and hire that new employee for your organization.

It sounds easy, so why wouldn’t it be? So many people are looking for work. Technology has made it easier to just post an ad and sit back and wait for responses.  What you may not be ready for is the scores of resumes that sometimes come in multiple times for one job and the cumbersome process of going through them.

So you need to have a plan and an organizational strategy for you or a staff member reviewing the information.  What qualifications and experience must a person have to be selected to interview?  When you call them what is their demeanor over the phone?

In hiring, the first test is the initial conversation you have with the candidate on the phone—before asking them to come in for a face-to-face interview. This step is very important and should not be ignored. Although you don’t have to handle this yourself, it is critical that someone in your office does an initial phone screening of each candidate prior to setting up an interview. Although the candidate may have a lot of questions for you, it’s much more important for you or your designee to get information from them.

How will you keep track of the applicants that are really good, possibly good and no good for the job?  Selecting the right person for the job the first time can prevent a possible disaster in the future.