www.HireMatters.com

Nutritionists will tell you that you are what you eat. Sociologists point to your neighborhood growing up as having a big influence on your current views of how the world works. Your mother even told you to be careful who you hang out with, right? So, is your personal success and ultimate career path more determined by who you have hired than you might realize? Maybe even more important to consider; if you recognize that you may have allowed yourself to be surrounded by less than the best, can you now do anything about it? Being a “Creature of Habit” often best shows itself in how you go about hiring.

An effective system for hiring has three distinct areas of importance; prioritizing the responsibilities of the position, identifying a quantity of qualified candidates and building an objective procedure for timely candidate evaluation and final selection. Rarely in our practice do we see individual managers succeeding in all phases of successful hiring. It is difficult to be great at everything; most of you already have far more responsibility than just one full time job.

I believe the biggest challenge facing even the most networked executive is the difficulty in identifying enough qualified candidates to feel confident in your selection decision. Specialization and narrow focus in our practice gives our clients a huge advantage over those who attempt it on their own. We maintain active relationships with thousands of professionals working the DFW marketplace. It is very common for our staff to invite 20+ candidates in for an exploratory interview when conducting a search. We are successful with few exceptions in having 3 qualified final candidates for each assignment we work. Having a quantity of good people sure helps identify the right person for the job.

Take a look at your internal process for interviewing and evaluating candidates. How long does it actually take from the first point of contact all the way through an accepted offer? I will tell you professional experience this is one area that you do have control over and streamlining this process will improve you hiring success. To be able to hiring the best you must be able to respond quickly. Consider who it is you most want to hire; like you, these people are not actively conducting a running job search. But when they decide to move, they move strategically and swiftly. Our experience tells us that most hiring decisions involving true “A” players takes less than 10 days on average. Our experience has also shown that virtually none of the companies we worked with on the first assignment were set up to respond that quickly. Think about your company; are you really able in the normal course of business able to respond this quickly. You can dramatically improve your odds if you and your team spend some quality time committing your process to paper.

Our success over the last 29 years is directly linked to our ability to repeatedly help our clients identify quality candidates with the skills to do their job. We have built our business by having a narrow expertise focus and delivering results quickly. The placements we make succeed for the long haul; our one year retention rates far exceed any of our competitors. We invest the time to truly evaluate the candidates we consider for your position. Our team understands you will only pay us for talent that you can not reach on your own. Success breeds success; when our placements succeed, you succeed and we succeed.

www.HireMatters.com is a career resource written by Rick Marshall, president of Marshall Career Service, Inc. located in Fort Worth, Texas. Marshall and his staff are recognized as one of the leaders in the placement and recruiting profession specializing in career opportunities located in the North Texas area. Client companies and qualified candidates working with Marshall Career Service enjoy a true level of personal service not found in today’s resume driven times. To learn more about our areas of expertise please follow this link to our website. www.marshallcareerservice.com