A much, much better way to hire

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The second-to-last last time I hired someone was an excruciating, exhausting, frustrating experience, and sadly, in the end, I must admit, a complete waste of time, too.

I hired the wrong person and fired her less than a month later.

Especially given all of the work that went in to the convoluted hiring process I employed at that time, I thought, “There has to be a better way.” Well, now there is, and I’ll tell you what it is in a moment, but first let me share my sad story so you don’t make the same mistake.I needed a new assistant. Like many of you, my assistant makes a big difference in the daily operations of my business. And, in my case, the person not only does administrative work, but some creative too – making videos, helping with social media, content creation, and the like. So finding the right person is critical, because not only does he or she help run my business but represent my brand, too.

There’s no room for mistakes. Well, I made a doozy. It all started (and I guess ended) when I listed my job on Craigslist. I should have known better. My job wasn’t listed there for more than 15 minutes when I began to get inundated with job applications. Actually, “inundated” is an understatement. For my part-time, local assistant job I received almost 400 applications.

How do you weed through that many cover letters? Who has time to read that many resumes without fogging over? How do you sort out that many applicants and keep everything straight? I couldn’t.

Eventually, I wrote 10 people back, hoped I didn’t miss any good ones (but knew I did), scheduled interviews, and finally hired Stephanie (name changed to protect the guilty).

She was horrible from the start. Looking back, I blame my stupid hiring process. I became overwhelmed with paperwork. Letters and resumes piled up, and so keeping things organized and so many applicants sorted out was virtually impossible.

Today I am using a far superior method, and it is one I suggest you look at, too. My friends at HRdirect recently launched the Job Applications Smart App. It is a fantastic tool that streamlines and makes the job application process much easier, more efficient, faster and better.

It does that in five ways:

1. It’s an app: These days, you have to be able to post and accept job applications online, electronically, and with everyone working mobile-ly, having that process refined to a simple app not only makes a lot of sense, it makes the process intuitive for everyone.

2. It’s legally compliant: Now, yes, this is the lawyer in me coming out, but the fact is, I have seen far too many cases in which employers have gotten into trouble because their application or process was not legally compliant.

The HRdirect Job Applications Smart App avoids that potential problem because it was drafted by lawyers and HR experts to be legally compliant with the most current hiring laws for your state.

3. It’s customizable: The app not only creates a perfect template job application for you, but it also allows you to add questions prewritten by the legal and HR experts at ComplyRight. You can include questions about skills, qualifications, educational background, references, etc. Also important, the experts at ComplyRight have created a comprehensive database of questions that make it easy to stay in compliance while still giving you the flexibility to hire smarter, and faster.

No more out-of-left-field candidates for you. (Or me!)

4. It’s easy: The app allows you to distribute your online employment application through a variety of ways:

  • Sharing a link anywhere online: You can instantly create a link to your job application to share, or you can add it to your website, company LinkedIn profile, email signature, online ad, and so on
  • Sending a personalized email: Alternatively, you can email your application to a candidate right from within the Job Applications Smart App.
  • Printing paper copies: You also can print copies of the application to hand out.

Best of all, because it’s all within the app, you can say goodbye to handwritten forms and tedious filing.

5. It’s fast. You can gather the vital job-related information you need about the best candidates in seconds. Indeed, the tracking and summary view in the app allows you to see and sort all submitted applications, see the status of a particular applicant, and digitally file applications.

By the way, did you know that employers are required to maintain all applications, including rejected applications, for a specified period as proof of non-discrimination? The app does that too.

Next time, I will add Stephanie’s there.