I really appreciated the 10-minute podcast via ERE.net on What’s Worrying Recruiters About Social Media. Keith Watts, an employment law attorney with Ogletree Deakins, discusses what it means to “do the right thing” when it comes to using Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter.

To sum it up, he repeatedly emphasizes the importance of:

• Consistency in the hiring process across the company;
• Making hiring decisions based on job-related factors.

Here at ADVISA, we work with clients on both of these fronts. We ask: “Are best hiring practices in place and consistently used across the company?” Right now I’m working on projects with two major clients where we are helping them improve their process for the purpose of increasing efficiency and effectiveness with screening, but we’ll also help train people across each company so that the established processes are consistent. After all, a great process is meaningless if it’s not put into practice well!

As part of the needs analysis we do to determine if work on hiring processes is merited, here are some questions we ask:

• What is the role of HR in hiring? The role of the hiring manager?
• At what stage is the hiring manager involved in selection?
• What is the typical time-to-fill?
• What is the candidate experience?
• Where is there frustration? Inefficiency?
• What is the turnover rate? How does the company feel about that rate?

These kinds of questions can lead to the identification of areas where consistency can be improved.

When it comes to defining the needs of the position, here are some of the signs we see that indicate that positions are not as clearly defined and they need to be. These are signs that there is ambiguity about the job-related factors on which selection decisions are made during candidate screening:

• Feedback on candidates is vague. (“She didn’t seem like a fit for us.”)
• Feedback on candidates is inconsistent.
• The company can offer no description of how this person will have to interact with the team/supervisor in order to be successful.
• Descriptions of multiple positions sound virtually the same.

Did you ask yourself the process-related questions above? Did you squirm as you thought about the answers? If so, contact me and we’ll work through some more exploration with you and take a look at how we can help. And if you have signs of ambiguity about what a position requires, beware…those situations are the ones that get companies into trouble because they open the door for decisions to be made on factors such as race, age and gender, which (among other categories) are not permissible. We’d be happy to help you gain clarity into what is required for given positions at your company, as well as how to screen for these traits.