Criteria Corp Blog

2018 has been a particularly challenging year for hiring. Employers are finding it harder and harder to find the right job candidates for their open positions now that the demand for workers exceeds the number of people currently unemployed in the workforce. These challenges become even more salient when it comes to seasonal hiring.

 About three years ago, Criteria Corp made the decision to have a dog-friendly office. The decision wasn’t sudden or dramatic. It started with one or two people gradually bringing in their dogs, and it eventually turned into a more formal policy with tangible guidelines and rules. We love our dogs so much that we even started an Instagram account devoted to them!

Earlier this week, we hosted a webinar with HR Bartender’s Sharlyn Lauby where we discussed strategies employers can use to stand out in a candidate’s market. With unemployment at relative lows and hiring demand still on the rise, it’s becoming more and more challenging to attract and hire great talent for your team.

When it comes to hiring interns, the challenges you might face are quite different from the challenges of hiring seasoned professionals. Typically we rely on a candidate’s work history or references to gauge their qualifications for the role, but those signals are distinctly missing for most intern applicants.

Nothing, neither human nor machine, can predict anything 100% of the time. Life is full of unknowns, and if it wasn’t, everything would be pretty boring!

With the Halloween season upon us, there are plenty of things that may spook you, but your hiring process shouldn’t be one of them. Anyone who has hired their fair share of employees knows that hiring mistakes are going to happen. After all, each hiring decision is a bit of a gamble. You make a hiring decision based on limited information on your candidates, and after time you’re bound to make a hiring decision you’ll regret.

Anyone involved in the hiring process knows that hiring comes with a lot of unknowns. Each candidate has their own skills and strengths, their own job histories and qualities, their own work styles and behavioral quirks. Hiring professionals are expected to identify all of these things in order to select the best fit for the job, all within a short period of time and with relatively limited tools. But people are complicated, which makes the hiring process equally complicated. Sooner or later, you’re going to hire someone who ultimately doesn’t work out.

Great employees quit for a multitude of reasons, and no company can expect to keep all of their employees forever. But that doesn't mean you shouldn't try to retain your top talent as much as you can. Voluntary turnover can have a major bottom-line impact on an organization; it's estimated that the cost to replace an employee can be as high as 30% of that employee’s salary. Even worse, employees who leave voluntarily are often your best employees, making the loss in productivity that much higher.

Last month, we published out our 2018 Pre-Employment Testing Benchmark Report, which explored trends in hiring and pre-employment testing based on the responses of over 350 hiring professionals from nearly every industry. And just yesterday, we hosted a webinar that took a deeper dive into some of the data. Here’s a snapshot of what we covered:

The mobile revolution is well underway and showing no signs of stopping. People are using their mobile devices for more and more tasks that used to be reserved for a desktop computer. From online shopping and gaming, to social media and the job search process, new technology is enabling us to more easily complete these everyday activities on our smartphones.