Hiring Practices

Written by Stephen J. Cabot

There was a time when the risks attached to bad hiring practices were minimal. If a someone turned out to be a poor fit - for whatever reason - he or she could be discharged with little or no fuss. But today, even in "fire-at-will" states like Pennsylvania, disgruntled former workers have legal weapons they can wield to make life very difficult for your organization. The wise employer will take steps to preempt that possibility by creating and following a carefully-crafted hiring practices program.

Here at the Cabot Institute, we have developed a unique template for hiring practices. With the benefit of our advanced hiring practices screening and analysis methodology, our clients are provided with a point-driven, quantifiable comparison of all applicants being considered. Our approach involves a number of elements designed to identify those most suited to the available position - and to pinpoint applicants who should be rejected immediately. Those components include:

• Hiring practices rule #1: Establishing and publishing a company philosophy - A crucial first step in hiring practices which makes a public and documented statement about your organization's values and expectations.
• Hiring practices rule #2: Determining the attitudes of applicants - It is both legal and advisable to ask applicants questions about their views on matters related to your company's statement of philosophy. Naturally, in any hiring practices protocol, all applicants should be evaluated according to this same standard.
• Hiring practices rule #3: Crafting questions which reveal - Careful selection and phrasing of applicant questions will usually prompt potential troublemakers to reveal themselves in their answers.
• Hiring practices rule #4: Careful listening (and observation) - Applicants will usually offer important information about themselves, not only with their actual words, but with their tone of voice, posture, and eye contact (or lack of it).
• Hiring practices rule #5: Creating a list of key qualities - While acknowledging that imperfection is common to us all, there are characteristics which should be considered essential in any new employee - and identified as part of your hiring practices.
• Hiring practices rule #6: Avoiding the hiring practices pitfalls - Guard against such self-inflicted hiring practices wounds as asking questions that aren't work-related, or having different standards for different applicants. Make sure you identify all the potential EEO nightmares.

We invite you to contact us with any specific questions or concerns related to hiring practices, personnel management, conflict avoidance, or any other employment law or human resources issues. To begin the conversation, simply send us an email: sjcabot@cabotinstitute.com.