How to choose between two candidates. With the changes in the employment market of recent months, it’s making it harder for companies to choose the best candidate. With more choice in the market than earlier this year, shortlisting candidates has become a more difficult task.
Making the right choice when it comes to hiring your next member of staff is vital to the success of your business. Choose someone to join your team who can really add value. Someone who fits with your culture. And don’t forget to think about how the candidate could grow with your business.
So what do you do when you have two candidates who are both excellent? How should you choose which to offer the job to?
Here’s our top tips to help you to know how to choose between two candidates –
Set a task
Sometimes it’s hard to get a really good idea of how someone will perform in a job just from a standard interview. It can be easy to make the mistake of hiring someone based on their ability to interview well. But what about the hard and soft skills to actually be successful at the job? Setting tasks is a great way to help you choose between two candidates. Whether it be checking grammar, data entry speed or conducting a role play, there are lots of ways to test skills. You may also want to consider psychometric testing. How will they react under pressure? What style of management helps them perform best? These additional insights can be really helpful when trying to decide who to offer a job to if you are really stuck.
Consider your company culture
How will that person fit in your current team? Do they have similar personality traits to others in the team? Will they compliment what you already have? When introducing a new person to an established team, it’s important to remember team dynamic. Remember, you don’t only want your new hire to be happy and successful in their work. You also want your team to be happy. You can even look at getting each candidate to work with the team for a couple of hours. That way the team can give you their feedback too. Which leads us nicely to…
Get a second opinion
If you want to know how to choose between two candidates, getting a second opinion is a great idea! Maybe someone from the team? Or may another manager? Don’t make the decision on your own if you are unsure. Although, there is something to be said for trusting your instinct. Asking someone else to join you as part of the interview process may well help you see more clearly which is the best candidate for you.
Look at the future of your company
It’s important to not just hire for now, but for the future too. As hopefully your chosen candidate will be with you for a number of years. Does one of the candidates have skills that may be of use in the future? If you are a company that looks to promote internally, which candidate would be most suited? Do you have plans to grow the team over the next few years? If you are then choosing the candidate that has the most experience working in larger teams may be best.
Get references
Finally, if you really are stuck and despite all of the above, the candidates are still on a par with each other a reference can help make the final decision. Whilst lots of companies will only provide confirmation of dates and job title, it is still possible to gain a more informal reference. Working with an agency means that we can help you when it comes to references. We can speak to the candidate and ask them to make an introduction to the referee on our behalf.
If you are recruiting at the moment and want some help with identifying the right candidates – get in touch! We pride ourselves on being able to find the right candidate, first time!
