Human resources (HR) specialists serve a vital role in your company. These individuals help you recruit new workers, train employees, and cultivate a healthy company culture. Understanding how to hire a human resources specialist is imperative to your company’s success. We’ve organized this detailed guide to help you with the process as you search for a new HR worker.
Hire When You Need Help
When hiring help in the human resources department, don’t wait until you are in a worst-case scenario and HR employees are overworked. Instead, be proactive when protecting the number of hours an employee works. Hiring additional help can reduce overworking existing staff, which helps to prevent burnout. Burnout leads to reduced productivity and morale and higher levels of employee turnover.
By having an appropriate number of staff members in the HR department, businesses can ensure they have ample resources available to serve their workforce. Additionally, well-staffed departments maintain higher efficiency and effectiveness due to fewer distractions or disruptions caused by overscheduling or understaffing.
Pro Tip
When roles are unexpectedly left vacant, existing employees must take on extra responsibilities to complete the work. While this is understandable for the short term, you should search for new help right away.
Create a Job Description
List all the qualifications necessary for the position, such as educational background and experience. Additionally, include any specialized skills and knowledge essential to the role.
Also, take time to craft a description of the position’s duties. In job postings, many hiring managers also speak about the company culture and benefits. This captures the attention of job seekers, which helps you fill that position faster.
Post on Various Websites
Post job descriptions on various websites to reach a broader range of people. Common job recruitment sites include:
- Glassdoor
- Indeed
- Monster
Posting job openings on multiple websites increases your chances of reaching a larger audience and finding qualified, suitable candidates. This broadens your talent pool and allows you to find appropriate employees. It also helps ensure you can fill positions quickly by tapping into diverse labor markets and other professionals with unique skill sets.
Request Employee Referrals
Asking current employees for referrals when you need to hire a human resources specialist is a great idea. Current employees understand the company culture and can refer people with values that align with the organization’s.
Gathering employee referrals also helps streamline the hiring process since you can often narrow down the candidates to several options. Remember that you should do this alongside posting descriptions online to ensure you hire the best choice for your company. Sometimes, you may only get one or two referrals from current employees, and neither option may be ideal.
Carefully Evaluate All Candidates
Once you’ve found a few potential hires, it’s time to get deeper into the evaluation process as interviews begin. This is a vital tip for hiring a human resources specialist, as it lets you get to know applicants better.
Prepare a list of standard interview questions, such as those related to their experience in the field and any special knowledge about HR procedures. Strive to ask about the following:
- Experience
- Personal traits
- Strengths and weaknesses
- Hard and soft skills
Create detailed notes to track each candidate’s answers as you ask questions. You’ll want to review this information later to narrow your top picks and decide which one to hire.
Compare the answers to what’s ideal for your company. For instance, the best HR employees are driven innovators who always think of new ways to improve the company. While it’s not a requirement, many are extroverts because the job requires consistent interaction with other people.
Ask About Past Experience
When evaluating potential candidates, it’s important to ask about their experience related to the HR specialist role. Gathering information about their successes and failures in previous roles helps you assess whether a person can handle the job’s responsibilities.
Pro Tip
If you like what you hear, ask for around three to four references from the candidate to verify their experience claims.
Ask Them To Describe Themselves
The most successful HR specialists have certain traits and personality types that help them succeed. When interviewing candidates, you should look for an individual who’s a natural problem-solver with an eye for detail. They should be able to work well under pressure and make clear decisions when necessary.
Ask About Strengths and Weaknesses
Asking about a candidate’s strengths and weaknesses helps you gain insight into their self-awareness and ability to identify areas of improvement. It also reveals if they have the skill set necessary for success in the role, such as strong communication and time-management abilities.
Pro Tip
Everyone has at least one weakness, and job seekers who admit to this know themselves. Better yet, if they state it’s something they want to work on, it proves that you can coach them.
Ask About Hard and Soft Skills
Hard skills are the technical abilities one has that pertain directly to the job role, such as knowledge of payroll systems or data management training. Soft skills refer to interpersonal abilities like being a good listener and having solid problem-solving skills. The individual you hire should have several hard and soft skills.
Leave It to Professional Recruiters
Hiring an HR specialist is often essential, and it requires time and effort to find the best candidate. When you leave this task to a staff recruitment agency, it utilizes its expertise and experience in the field to quickly identify potential candidates. With an agency’s help, you can find candidates who are the best fit for your company. This saves you time and resources, as recruiters can access industry-specific databases filled with qualified individuals so you don’t have to manually search for candidates.
Moreover, since recruiting is their job, recruiters are less likely to make critical mistakes that could lead to a costly hiring process or a bad hire. Plus, if any problems arise during the recruitment process, professional recruiters can work through them quickly using their extensive knowledge of the field.
Contact Burnett’s Staffing
Burnett’s Staffing is a recruiting agency in the Fort Worth, TX, area. When we work with a company, we sit down and interview a representative to get a thorough understanding of the company’s needs and culture. Then, we use this knowledge to seek out the best job candidates for your open positions. Please contact us if you have questions or would like to use our services.
