Domestic Staffing

Don’t just look at an employee’s professional skills when hiring them

You're about to hire your first candidate, but you're not sure whether they're a perfect fit. If you're not sure what to look for in a qualified professional, always start by inspecting their skills and background. After all, you need to begin somewhere.

By honing in on their qualifications during the first interview, you can usually determine whether or not they can complete your required day-to-day tasks.

From there, look beyond their skill set. This will probably happen if you bring the candidate in for a second (or final) interview. Sure, you'll discuss their background in depth, but you'll also have time to have a more casual conversation, which will allow the candidate's personality to shine through.

Here are several qualities to look for in a candidate during the final review process:

1. Whether they're a team player
Does the candidate appear to be someone who enjoys working on a team? They might say so on their resume, but you'll obtain a better sense when they discuss specific times they worked with colleagues to accomplish goals.

Being a team player is critical because it could improve collaboration, engagement and ultimately make process and procedures run more efficiently. The end result is a more productive crew of workers.

Even if you're only hiring one professional, he or she should still be a team player because the employee may be interacting with your family on a daily basis. Someone who is a team player may be may be more likely to work around your family's daily activities, allowing you to go about your day uninterrupted.

2. They want to learn
In any business setting, the aptitude and desire to learn quickly is crucial to a candidate's ability to complete required tasks. Remember, you and your family are busy working, going to school and taking care of each other. Domestic workers seek to relieve stress by doing many of the chores and tasks you no longer want or have time to do.

You should be able to tell whether a candidate loves to learn by the types of educational opportunities they seek outside of working hours.

3. They're accountable
In order to measure a candidate's level of accountability, you could ask them a question such as "Could you describe a difficult time you had at work and how you overcame it?" Or, a question like "Could you describe a few weaknesses and how you developed them into strengths?"

Accountable domestic workers are key components to any household because they're employees you can trust. This is especially important considering you may have many of your valuables (jewelry and electronics) laying out when your domestic workers are present.

4. They're a hard worker
It's difficult to tell whether someone's a hard worker without working alongside them. However, you might be able to gain an idea by looking at their resume and speaking with them. If their resume shows they've been promoted a number of times, you can make a safe assumption they climbed the ladder through hard work. Follow up to ask them about each position to gain further insight into their day-to-day responsibilities.

5. Talk to their references
Talking to a candidate's references should always be on your to-do list. Here you get the opportunity to talk to third-party personnel about what they think about the candidate you're interviewing with.

We wouldn't be shocked if everyone you talked to had good things to say about the candidate. But what should you look for beyond the positive reviews is what those people talk about. Do their comments match the information presented on their resume? Or did the candidate exaggerate their job responsibilities?

Most human resource experts would agree with the statement that having strong references is a key component to a candidate's job application. Rosemary Haefner, vice president of human resources at CareerBuilder, noted that candidates should include as references colleagues who can discuss their scope of responsibilities in detail.

"You want to make sure you are including your biggest cheerleaders among your job reference"s," said Haefner, according to a release. "Before choosing someone, ask yourself 'Did this person understand my full scope of responsibilities? Can he or she vouch for my skills, accomplishments and work ethic?'

As an employer, this type of information allows you to set quality and performance benchmarks even with references. Poor references don't meet the expectations set forth by Haefner, and should hurt the candidate's chances to earn the job

Are you interested in applying for domestic jobs with one of the most trusted domestic staffing agencies? Contact Colonial Domestic Agency today!

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