Why Job Interviews Aren’t Enough
Hiring someone new to come into your business can be scary. You want to make sure you find the right person and don’t hire someone untrustworthy. You might think that an interview will tell you all you need to know about the person you’re working with, but unfortunately, it’s just not enough. If you want to do proper due diligence on your new employee, you need to do more.
If you’re looking to hire someone for your business, it’s likely you’ve advertised the position, received resumes, chosen a shortlist from these based on their experience and skills and then set up interviews. You’ve also likely created a list of interview questions to help you compare the personalities and suitability of your candidates, and rang their references to get an idea of how they’ve worked. This is all great work! It definitely helps you weed out people that are unsuitable for the role. Unfortunately, it doesn’t rule our dishonest and untrustworthy future employees.
Why not? Well, the sad fact is, all these things could be lies. The resume could be falsified or exaggerated. Their interview could be an act. People can perform really well in interviews because they are accomplished liars, or are naturally charming. Their reference could be paid, or could be cherry picked from one job where they did well or didn’t get caught. Of course, everyone picks their best reference. However, some people do this to hide a very big negative trait, like theft, misuse of company assets, high absenteeism, laziness or incompetence.
What can you do? Well, asking them is out of the question. A lying potential employee will sound the same as an honest one. What you need to do is find out if they’re hiding anything. You could try to investigate this yourself, but you’ll likely either not find much, or end up breaking the law yourself by falling into stalking territory.
What you can do, however, is use a private investigator to perform a background check or investigation on your shortlisted potential employees. This gives you a good sense of their past, whether they went to the university they say they did, whether they actually worked at their resume listed jobs, and can turn up any red flags such as prior convictions or lies or exaggerations in their work history. It can also give you an idea of what they are like as a person, as the private investigator can find out things about the driving and credit history that you can use to get an idea as to their behaviour.
In the end, you want to make sure your employee is the right person for the job. Trusting their resume and references leaves the control of information in their hand. Reduce the risk of hiring a bad employee and give us a call on 1300 721 715 or email info@eliteinvestigations.com.au so we can help you do your due diligence and hire the right person.