An Intense Journey Worth Taking

TR001039Getting the right people on the bus is a well known mantra among staffing firms, for good reason. A cohesive team connected by competence and culture will outperform the sum of its parts.

But building such teams is challenging, both for our clients and for us. At iMethods, we have room on our bus but the right passengers are hard to find.

We would like to expand our internal staff by as much as 50 percent in 2013. To do so, we would likely have to interview 100 candidates for 10 positions, including sales representatives, accounting managers and recruiters.

Drawing applications will be easy. Finding the right hires will be harder because we are our own worst bottleneck when it comes to getting people on our bus.

IMethods uses a referral program and a rigorous 12-step hiring process to ensure that new hires will bring the necessary competence and will thrive within the firm’s culture. The process is typical in how it begins with a resume review and ends with an offer extended but it includes several steps that are specific to iMethods.

In addition to the usual mix of telephone and in-person interviews, we require promising candidates to complete a strengths profile to confirm they’re the right match for a specific position. Candidates also must complete a written activity related to our core values and take a behavioral assessment that evaluates traits like drive and flexibility.

We also use job shadowing to set expectations and to expose candidates to our culture. Our purpose-driven, employee-centric culture has been key in growing our firm.

It is harder for us to find employees that will thrive in our culture than it is to fill openings based upon technical competence alone. Our two- to three-week hiring process has proven beneficial though in that our internal over rate is only 15 percent. Having such consistency in our staffing helps us better meet the needs of our clients because we can evaluate candidates for them based upon our knowledge of their cultures.

Culture certainly is not the only consideration in hiring but it is among the most important. It is better to have the right people on the bus, contributing from the right seats, than to have passengers who are just along for the ride.

Chad Perce

Chad Perce
Chad Perce is CEO and co-founder of iMethods, an IT staffing and consulting company specializing in healthcare. He can be reached at chad.perce (at) imethods (dot) com.

Chad Perce

Share This Post

Tweet

Related Articles

Powered by staffingindustry.com ·