IT is becoming more and more expensive when managers make mistakes by hiring the wrong people.

A company can be set back by as much as six months as they re-do the advertising and screening process.

Most managers have had the experience of hiring persons who had excellent resumes, presented themselves very well in the interview, had neat appearances and seemed to have the qualifications to meet the necessary job requirements – only to find out later that these seemingly qualified candidates turned out to be the wrong person for the job.

Today, the chances of making a bad hiring decision are greater than ever as applicants have become more skilled at presenting themselves in resumes which really are self reports.

Interviews are performances at which some people are very good. Identifying potentially counterproductive employees before you hire them is one of the greatest challenges to a manager these days. The problem of hiring counterproductive employees has reached epidemic proportions.

Resume falsification

More than 20 per cent of resumes contain information that is falsified or exaggerated to some extent, an estimate based on thousands of resumes reviewed over the past 10 years by the JobBank.

These include qualifications, work experiences and achievements that applicants claim to have, but don’t.

Some applicants omit critical job-related issues, and some ‘professionals’ are offended when asked to bring the originals of their certificates and degrees to the interview.

Employee theft

Many people do not understand that checks at the exit of places like PriceSmart, Mega Mart and H&L True Value, is mainly to catch staff-customer collusion.

In the United States, losses due to employee theft are greater than US$40 billion a year and are increasing by 15 per cent annually.

In retail establishments, employee theft is estimated at 43 per cent of shrinkage losses, compared to 30 per cent attributed to shoplifting. Overall, employee theft can increase the cost of retail merchandise by as much as 15 per cent.

In financial institutions, losses have nearly doubled in recent years. Losses due to internal fraud have been about four times that of burglary and robbery.

Many Jamaican companies are quietly suffering because they fear the bad publicity.

In the United States, the Federal Bureau of Investigation estimates that internal theft accounts for 86 per cent of all losses every year.

Pre-employment screening methods

Most companies use several selection methods when assessing job applicants because no single applicant screening procedure alone can determine employability.

Choices must be made based on whether or not these particular selection procedures are cost-effective in terms of time, money and other resources needed to perform them and the quality of the employees to be hired using them.

Interviews

Interviewing is probably the most common pre-employment screening technique. A structured interview can verify information on applications and resumes. It also can provide valuable insight into an applicant’s personality, skills and abilities.

But interviewing may not be as effective as employers would like because it is often a subjective, non-directed process.

Also, it can be difficult to determine truthfulness when discussing work history and the level of skills and abilities. Unfortunately, most interviewers are not trained in interviewing techniques and may not have the ability to elicit the types of information the employer needs.

Reference checks

Reference checks are useful for verifying information on an application form or a resume and for providing background information on an applicant’s work history.

Unfortunately, reference checks do not always yield reliable information because many employers are reluctant to say anything negative about a past employee.

Additionally, misconduct, even if it did occur, may have gone undetected. An additional difficulty is that a prospective employer has no real way of knowing if the designated references are themselves reliable or if they are the most important ones to check.

Continues next week

—————Dr Leachim Semaj, CEO of the JobBank, is a frequent facilitator for strategic planning retreats, cultural alignment and organisational restructuring. He conducts staff selection and development programmes for different business sectors across the Caribbean.