Overcome the Hiring Headache

The same challenges yesterday, today and forever

Anyone involved in recruitment will know that it’s a challenging industry and this is unlikely to change. The Millennial generation is more “fidgety” than the generations that have gone before. Uncertainty caused by the Covid pandemic also means most employees will constantly be on the look-out for better and more secure employment packages.

Then there are all the age-old ‘problems’ of recruitment to negotiate:

• Too many applications, not enough time to review them all thoroughly
• Filtering inappropriate applications
• Choosing between several highly qualified candidates
• Fear of ‘getting it wrong’
• Finding the right skills but the wrong ‘fit’

What’s a recruiter to do?! Common recruitment pitfalls

A number of well-trodden recruitment faux-paths (excuse the pun!) exist:

• Rushing the hire
• Recruiting in too narrow a pool
• Being blinded by rhetoric and the person who ‘talks a good game’
• Misleading references
• Spending too much money on recruitment agencies

But perhaps the biggest mistake (and sadly one made far too often) is focusing too much on the candidates’ CV and interview and not paying attention to their approach to work. A CV can tell you a lot about a person’s skills and experience (competencies) but little about their behaviours.

Imagine for a moment that you receive 4 applications with very little separating them. The CV’s are all strong. All the candidates perform well in interview. How are you then meant to make a decision?

C-me Colour Profiling is a great tool to help at this point. Diagram 1 displays 4 contrasting sets of behaviours, each of which is assigned a different colour. Using C-me’s Profiling system enables you to gain quality information on every candidate’s colour preference (preferred ways of doing things) and use this to guide the process and inform decision-making.

Diagram 1 – Behaviour Profiles

The cost of getting it wrong

Recruiting the best talent is expensive.

Getting it wrong is even more expensive.

It can frighten us into rushing a new hire our efforts to ‘fill the gap’. Alternatively, it can frighten us against hiring, for fear of making a repeat mistake. There is the cost of wasted time and the impact a wrong hire can have on team dynamics, which is often felt long after the employee has moved on (if indeed they do move on!)

C-me can help you get your hires right first time, every time. We do this, not just by helping you understand the candidates’ behaviours before you hire them, but also helping you to consider how they might or might not fit within the existing team.

Diagram 2 displays the contrasting contributions that people with different colour preferences will make to a team.

It is not just a person’s skills that matters but also how they behave / are motivated / handle pressure/ relate to others.

As has commonly been proven, a team of superstars doesn’t always guarantee success. We overlook chemistry at our peril.

“C-me helps us make good decisions around recruitment. We can’t afford to make recruitment mistakes. Our talent needs to be right for us and us right for them. I believe we make better decisions all-round on selection, on promotion, on the right people for each team and getting each person to an even higher level of performance because we use C-me Colour profiles”

Mark Smith – CEO, WRc plc

The benefits of getting it right

Diagram 3 - Team Behaviour Mix

Diagram 3 displays the make-up of an imaginary team. Each of the white dots represents the unique colour combination of each member of the team. In order to help understand the positive impact and challenges a potential hire might have on an existing team, our Profiling allows you to ‘insert’ a potential candidate into the existing team and use this to aid decision making.

What strengths will they bring that complement the existing team? How does their communication style differ? What potential conflict might their introduction create?

Below are six benefits of using C-me Colour Profiling in your recruitment process:

1. Saves time and money – the low cost of the profiles relative to the quality of information they provide to aid you in the hire process are incomparable.
2. Prevents hiring ‘blindness’ – it is all too easy to ‘hire in our own image’ but C-me Profiles can help us think more expansively and thoroughly.
3. Helps facilitate more effective interviews - design interview questions with candidates’ colour preference in mind and stretch them by asking questions focussed on their less preferred ways of doing things.
4. Ensures team chemistry remains a priority – ensuring a potential hire will fit into the existing team or organisational culture, whilst also promoting healthy challenge and though-diversity.
5. Supports the existing team – enabling the existing team to understand a new recruit before they even start work.
6. Aids the onboarding process – helping line managers know how to motivate their new recruit quickly and best support them in times of stress.