Hiring the right person, on purpose

How to use this guide

If you are deciding whether HiMatcher is for you, read The method in ten minutes and then take the quick tour. Together they take about twenty-five minutes and you will have seen a whole campaign.

If you are already using HiMatcher, go straight to the chapter for the job in hand. Each one opens with what you will learn, takes you through the task in numbered steps, and shows you the screen you should be looking at.

The example we follow

Every chapter uses the same example. Northbridge Guitar School teaches adults to play, mostly online, and needs a part-time Studio Administrator who works from home. Alex Morgan is running the campaign and Sam Reed helps with the scoring. One hundred and fifty people apply. The school, the staff and every applicant are invented, but the screens are the real ones.

Contents

Understanding the method

1. The method in ten minutes Why most hiring is a gamble, and the five ideas that make it a decision instead.
2. A quick tour: Hiring an administrator One campaign from the first questions to the client to the offer, in twelve stops and about fifteen minutes.
3. The words we use Every term in this guide, in plain English, with the chapter that explains it.

Running a campaign

4. The briefing: Before the conversation Starting a campaign, sending the hiring manager the right questions in writing, and drawing the briefing sheet from their answers before you talk.
5. The briefing: The conversation Recording the hiring manager with the questions in front of you, having the recording written out or uploading the transcript, adding what was agreed but not said, and adding a later meeting.
6. The job description The one-page advertisement Digital Nancy drafts from the person specification and everything the briefing gathered, the questions she could not settle, and approving it.
7. The person specification Checking the specification Digital Nancy drafts under the method, criterion by criterion, saying where each is tested, and creating the version the campaign runs on.
8. The application form Building the form from the person specification, checking it as a candidate will see it, putting it live, and knowing what candidates meet when they apply.
9. Scoring the application forms Reading each answer against the description you wrote in advance, and placing it in one of five bands.
10. Managing candidates and the pipeline Finding anybody in a campaign, putting the list in the order that helps, moving people on, keeping notes for your colleagues, setting people aside and bringing them back, and shaping the pipeline itself.
11. Interviews Setting up the interviews your pipeline calls for, inviting candidates to book their own time, recording the conversation, and scoring what you heard.
12. Suggesting candidates to your client Choosing who the client sees and how much, sending them a private link, and letting their decisions move candidates along the pipeline.
13. Turning candidates down, and feedback Telling candidates kindly that they will not be going further, and giving feedback to anyone who asks for it, prepared for you from the person specification.
14. Emails to candidates Writing to one candidate or to many, reading what they write back, changing the wording of every email, and knowing which emails send themselves.
15. Team messages Writing to your colleagues about a campaign, inside HiMatcher. Each message goes to the people it is for, links to the candidate, answer, question or criterion it is about, and stays on a record you can search.

Setting up

16. Your clients, or your departments One record for each client you recruit for, or each department you hire for, with its campaigns and its people; renaming, notes, and merging two records that were one all along.
17. Your team and who can do what Inviting colleagues, choosing the right role for each, changing or removing them, and protecting everyone's sign-in with a second step.
18. Settings: Email, interviews, words, transcription, styling, job boards and who you recruit for Choosing how your email is sent, setting the rules for interviews, what your team calls a dealbreaker, what writes out your recordings, making HiMatcher look like your organisation, giving the job boards your feed, and saying whether you recruit for yourselves or for clients.
19. Digital Nancy and your own key What Digital Nancy does and what she never does, what is included with every campaign, when to connect a key of your own and how, what her work costs, and how to read the record of every use.