My Automated Solution To a Broken Hiring Process

Just about everyone who has owned a small business has had to deal with hiring other people. One of the most frequently used phrases I'm sure you have heard is that "it is hard finding good help these days". I used to say this quite often until I finally learned that I was using a broken hiring system. What do I mean by a "broken hiring system"?


What The Broken Hiring System Looks Like
Try to imagine placing an advertisement so that you could hire 1 employee or 1 independent contractor to be a vendor for your company and you receive over 150 replies. You can't possibly go through them all in a reasonable amount of time. Even if you did somehow manage to review them all, you would find that 70-80% had absolutely no experience in your industry and that they most likely submitted an application out of desperation. After hours and hours of reading applications and resumes you might end up with 5-10 qualified potential candidates out of the 150 that filled out your application, if you're lucky. But most employers will not be able to properly review all of these resumes and applications due to time restraints. And remember that they are hiring because they already don't have enough time to complete their other business tasks. So most of the time they will end up hiring based on personality instead of personality, experience, skills and attitude.

In today's economy, this is what is happening to many employers. The above numbers are NOT exaggerated. So in order to accomplish the goal of "hiring a qualified candidate in a reasonable amount of time", a business owner cannot continue to do what may have worked a few years ago; he or she must figure out a different method that works in the current economy.

Adding Pre-Screening Hurdles To Your Application
Your new hiring application will actually be your previous application along with a few pre-screening hurdles. The first thing I did was to add a few specific actions that need to be completed by the applicant in order to submit the application. These "applicant actions" I have implemented within my application are designed to test the applicant's computer skills instead of relying on them to honestly answer a question about it. I have also added a mandatory insurance requirement along with a few others. Ultimately by adding these "hurdles" to my application process, I am now going to have fewer unqualified people submitting applications so that I will end up with a shorter list of potential qualified candidates. The least qualified individuals will choose to move along to the next potential employer because it will be easier for them.

My ultimate goal with this hiring process is to focus my screening on the specific human characteristics and skills that I know, from previous experiences, are important in my line of work. I will no longer be relying on simply asking questions and telling the potential candidates about what characteristics I am looking for because it is too easy for them to just ignore it. So instead, we are setting up the entire hiring system so that the applicant cannot even submit the application without using the specific skills I am looking for. It is not wise to rely on the assumption that everyone will be totally honest on the applications. Think about it. If an applicant is struggling to feed his or her family, don't you think they will be trying to do whatever they possibly can in order to get the job?

Some Pre-screening Ideas For Your Application Process
- Application Fee
- Background Check Fee
- Technical Skills Test
- Knowledge Test
- Make the applicants conduct a series of actions to test their computer skills such as upload, download, email, etc


My Personal "No-Cost" Automated Application Process
I have been using an "automated" application process that I created 3 years ago and it has worked perfectly every single time I needed to hire someone. Each time I need to run my little hiring process, I end up with detailed applications submitted to me from about a dozen extremely qualified candidates so I am then able to conduct a phone or email interview and proceed from there. I designed this system to eliminate the worst part of the hiring process which is sorting through mountains of resumes from unqualified people or having to discuss the same issues over and over again with 100's of people. In fact, the total time invested is about 30 minutes because I have utilized some basic technological tools that take care of a lot of the leg work.

Setting up my automated application process each time I need to hire someone new only takes about 15-30 minutes of my time. Of course this is after initially setting everything up the first time. Initial set up of this system should take the average person approximately 1-2 hours. I almost forgot to mention that each time I run my automated hiring application system costs me nothing. It is FREE. It was designed using creativity and "no cost" sources of advertising.

Could You Use An Automated Hiring System?
I have been going through all the systems and processes I use to run my business so that I can get them out on paper. The reason for this is because my goal is to create a detailed operations manual that I can hand over to an office manager so that he or she will be able to operate my business the same exact way that I do. This application process is just one of the several milestones needed to accomplish my goal of having a "business that works for me" instead of "me working for the business". And since I firmly believe in sharing information with other people, I decided to create written reports that detail the exact steps involved in each of these milestones as I accomplish them. So check back within the next few weeks if you are interested in learning about how to implement your own "automated" system for hiring employees or independent contractors.