As all business owners and employers quickly learn when setting out, there's a vast difference between a worker who's correctly matched to a role and the organisation than one who is not. 

But how does one find and match the right people to perform the right jobs?  In a nutshell, this can be achieved by developing and including a meticulous, comprehensive recruitment and selection program in your business strategies. 

It's imperative to resist the temptation of cutting corners as this could lead to shortchanging your results. In this piece, we explore tips for recruiting top-quality employees. 

1. Craft accurate job descriptions.

The first step you need to take is to ensure that you have accurate job descriptions for each available role in your organisation.  Your job descriptions need to reflect the positions individuals will fill carefully, the required skill sets, any essential personality traits needed for completing tasks and of course the relevant experience which differentiates one applicant from the next.  While this might sound pretty basic, you'll be surprised at just how many organisations fail to define their job specs for available roles accurately. 

2. Create a "success profile". 

In addition to crafting proper job specifications, it's vital to create a "success profile" of the ideal employee for critical roles within your business which are crucial to the execution of your business plan. These could include positions such as team leaders, district managers and sales staff. For example, perhaps you have twenty sales positions. Within this twenty, you have four employees who are top performers, twelve who are middle-of-the-road and four who aren't performing efficiently. If you consider increasing your sales force in the top performers from 20% to 33%, this could have a notable effect on your company's sales performance.

To achieve this goal, you will need to accurately profile everyone in your sales team to identify the skills and attributes which are common among your top performers but missing from your weaker salespeople. By utilising this data, you'll be able to craft a profile to assist in selecting new, successful candidates. 

3. Draft your ads, accurately describe the position and qualifications required. 

Although many candidates will ignore these qualifications and respond regardless, including this information will help you restrict the number of inexperienced applicants. 

4. Post your ad across the mediums most likely to reach your potential candidates. 

In today's recruitment arena, the Internet has become the leading medium for posting available positions; however, it's wise not to overlook traditional media such as classifieds and newspapers. 

5. Develop phone-screening questions. 

Take the time to compile a list of suitable questions you can pose on the phone to aid in identifying qualified candidates while eliminating unsuitable potentials quickly. 

6. Review the CVs received and identify the most suitable candidates. 

Once your ad has been posted, in no time you'll start receiving applications and CVs, commonly more than you initially anticipate. By defining what you're seeking in terms of experience, education and skill sets will help your sift through these CV's swiftly as well as identify potential candidates. 

7. Screening candidates via phone. 

Once you've narrowed down your list of CVs to a handful of potential hires, it's time to call the applicants and put your phone-screening questions to work to narrow the field further. Utilising a consistent set of questions for your phone interviews and face-to-face interviews will ensure that you evaluate all candidates equally. 

8. Select candidates for assessment. 

Based on the responses you glean from your telephonic interviews, select the candidates you feel are best suited for the next step in the hiring process.

9. Use tools with proven track records to assess your potential candidates. 

Phone interviews and CVs will only tell you so much about your applicants, so you'll need to utilise a reliable assessment tool to further analyse the core behavioural traits and cognitive reasoning speed of your candidates. A good test will provide invaluable insights into whether your applicants are conscientious or lazy, introverted or extroverted, pleasant or uncompromising, open to new ideas or close-minded, and emotionally stable or anxious and insecure. 

The success profile which you crafted for each position will aid in determining which behavioural traits are required for each post. For instance, you should expect a successful salesperson to be extroverted. In another scenario, you might need an-house admin cleric to be more introverted. 

Assessment tests can be conducted in person or online. Online testing and the submission of results can help you determine whether applicants should be invited for a personal in-house interview.

10. Schedule and conduct candidate interviews. 

Once you've selected candidates making use of the previous steps, it's time to schedule and conduct face-to-face interviews. Ensure that you use a consistent set and number of questions to ensure a structured interview and sound basis for the comparison of applicants. 

11. Select your candidates.

It's time to select the best candidates for the available positions by matching them to the profiled job specifications. 

12. Run the required background checks on your candidates to glean any potential issues not revealed by the previous testing and interviews.

13. Make an offer. 

The information you've collated during your interview processes will provide you with invaluable insights, including training requirements, and compensation. 

Before diving into your hiring process, it's wise to determine your strategy relative to how candidates would fit into your business. What is your process for ensuring that they're a good fit with your company culture?  Consider who else, if anyone, is needed for the interview process.  By using the tips outlined above, you should be smooth sailing for finding the best candidates for open positions in your company.