When it comes to hiring, what do companies want? They want the best-suited candidate for the role, period. Is this really too much to ask? In today’s times, there are several major obstacles to identifying the right candidate for a role – people copying and pasting information from others to build on their own resumes, memorizing things that are likely to be asked in an interview without really knowing or understanding what they mean – basically, faking their credentials.

Forget about finding the right candidate for the job, finding someone even half suited is sometimes all that companies look for. Unfortunate to say the least. At times companies are even satisfied if candidates seem good enough to take them across the line.

Why this is happening is a discussion for another post – my idea here is to help companies find genuine and worthy candidates from the large numbers of professionals that apply for a role. Hiring and finding the right candidate is literally like finding a needle in a haystack.

So how do organizations improve the level of their hiring and make it more robust?

How do we avoid hiring mistakes?

Having a process driven approach is one part of the answer, but even before the process kicks in, is there something that one can do to understand the person better than merely asking questions related to his role and work? The answer is yes.

This is where intuition and an understanding of people, psychology and other aspects related to the candidate’s behavior come into play – his or her characteristic attributes, psychic traits, mannerisms, body language, and so on. What is important is to understand is who the person really is, and what they want out of life – the kind of demeanor they exude.

How do we apply this principle? As the saying goes “the first impression is the best impression” – there are some traits that can be identified during the first call or the first meeting or interaction with the candidate. Many times, these traits or signs are taken lightly and overlooked, but sometimes can be indicative of critical problems related to the candidate.

What does all this lead to?

Passion! And a passionate person is very difficult to come by. Passion is devotion, dedication, fervor, and excitement, all brought together. There is a huge difference between someone who works because he has to and someone who comes into work because he loves what he does and enjoys every minute at work.

Organizations must stop being robotic, only looking to compare and match a candidate with a JD. They need to go that extra mile and start getting intuitive, applying their minds and understanding psychology to hire the best candidate they possibly can for the role.