Three Things You Need to Know Before You Post a Job

By TEAM Software May 21, 2020 Categories: ,

Posting the job itself is only half the battle. Create a structured hiring process before you search for applicants.

It used to be that posting an opening for a cleaner or guard was a huge task. But today, that’s not the case. Anyone can hop on a job posting or social media website and post a job within a matter of minutes. And, within hours, your applicants can start pouring in, sometimes by the dozens. An applicant tracking system can also be used, making it easy to contact, rate and move applicants throughout the hiring process efficiently.

Posting a job may seem like a simple and straightforward process, but prior to posting, you still need a structured plan in place to ensure maximum applicant volume and be prepared to handle it well. Before you post your next job for a guard or cleaner, here are three critical elements that must be nailed down first.

Determine your hiring needs

Avoid reactionary hiring by understanding what you really need from the open position and hire for the position you need, not just to replace someone who left. While all hiring is going to be somewhat reactionary due to fires, quits or business growth, it’s important you know exactly what each role is going to need to do and fill it accordingly.

Prepare Your Interview Questions

Once you have defined the roles and responsibilities of the job, you need to create interview questions that help grade your applicants on how they fit within those responsibilities. One of the most common mistakes in the prehire process is inconsistent interviewing. Your company is susceptible to U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission lawsuits stemming from the interview process, so you need a structured plan in place for exactly what interview questions you’re going to ask. Once you have these questions in place, do not deviate from them. Each candidate should receive the exact same questions in the interview process.

Structure the Evaluation Process

For businesses in high-turnover industries like cleaning and security, you need to be sure your hiring practices are leading to growth not stagnation. Once you know what kind of hire you need and the questions you need to ask, it’s important to implement rock-solid process to evaluate the candidates and find the right hire.

  • Create a Panel – Hiring costs are soaring in the cleaning and security industries, making it more important than ever before to ensure you’re making the right decision so you don’t have to go back to the drawing board prematurely. Have a panel of two or three interviewers for every hire, from night-time cleaners to general managers. Panel interviews keep people in line with their questioning, and you’re less likely to deviate from your plan.
  • Assign the Roles – Once you have your panel established, assign roles to each person. For example, one person can be the primary interviewer, while the other is checking for body language and analyzing cultural fit within the organization. Whatever your roles are, have them pre-defined at the beginning.
  • Know Your Criteria – Lastly, knowing the criteria you ultimately want to use for making the final call is vital for protecting against unintentional bias. A good way to think about your criteria is by using what we call the Rule of Thirds:
    • Experience – What’s on their resume? Do they know how to operate necessary equipment and understand essential protocols? Have a well-defined list of minimum and preferred experience.
    • Cultural Fit – For field workers, your site manager is the best judge of this. Would the new hire be a good fit on the team? At the site?
    • Behavioral Assessments – What does the data say? Prehire assessments can help you identify the role in which the employee would thrive the most — if any at all.

The beauty of job boards and applicant tracking software is they make hiring for your cleaning or security company more convenient than ever — just press a few buttons and it’s done. And while that is true, software only solves half the battle. There’s always going to be a human component to it. The other half is making sure you have the right processes in place to properly vet your candidates and move them through your hiring funnel in an efficient and compliant manner.
TEAM Software acquired Kwantek, a prehire solution with applicant tracking and onboarding software designed for high-turnover cleaning and security businesses. Kwantek compliments TEAM’s existing strengths to provide a complete software solution to manage all your prehire needs from recruitment to onboarding.