To date, the United States of America has a population of approximately 305,689,000. With that in mind, it is very hard to determine a person’s true identity. For example, doing business with someone you barely know can get you in a lot of trouble. To avoid this from happening, you can start by investigating an individual’s past records.

For many companies, hiring a new employee can be a very tedious task. There are many steps that need to be taken to hire the perfect candidate. There are also a series of tests to determine if a candidate is qualified for the job. These may consist of a personality test, a drug test and an investigation of the candidate’s background. These factors can be considered in finding a great candidate that will be suitable for the job.

As we all know the finding good employees to provide quality service to clients is very imperative to all companies. The success of a company depends on the quality of their product and the performance of their employees. Therefore, it is important to screen all possible applicants before hiring them as employees.

In doing so, we will also be able to determine if they are able to perform their duties successfully so that the company will continue to provide great service and provide quality products to their clients.

One way to screen an applicant is by investigating their Criminal Background Records. This is very useful for employers especially when choosing the right candidate to hire. This document includes a detailed report of any past crimes committed by an individual. In processing this report, the hiring managers will have a detailed description of the candidates past criminal records, if any. This will help the employer make a sound decision based on the companies hiring criteria.

Companies exert a lot of effort when hiring new employees. Checking a candidate’s Criminal Background Records will save companies a lot of time and money. They even have the option of conducting background checks online. Simply search for a reliable company to conduct the search and results can be emailed to you as soon as they have been processed.

Unemployment figures are at an all time high and companies continue on the course of downsizing. So should your company actual be hiring when most organizations are scaling back? If your organization wants to be one of the key players when the economy turns around, then the time to prepare for the turnaround is right now. Three important things to consider are:

Do you have employees that are not meeting performance expectations?
Can you capitalize on the abundance of top performers that are currently available?
Have you considered utilizing interim hires?

Take a good look at the performance of your existing employees? During good times if an employee is not meeting expectations, there’s a tendency to look the other way. Can you afford to carry weak employees? It’s critical to take a hard look to see if you have under-performers in your organization. If you have employees that are not meeting performance expectations you must take action. Replace weak performers with people that will do what the job calls for.

Next capitalize on the top talent that is currently available. Just like it is a buyers’ market in real estate, it is currently a “hiring market” for employers. Company restructuring and downsizing has created an abundance of quality talent available. Short-sighted organizations are looking at survival. Companies that look beyond survival are looking towards the future to see if their current talent pool supports their long term strategy. These companies are hiring top talent now and building a strong, solid organization.

One note of caution; be careful using the same approach that you might use in a real estate transaction, when you are making an offer to a new hire. You may throw out a below market offer on house. And if you are lucky, you may get it. If you do the same thing with a new hire, the new hire may accept the offer; however this strategy could backfire. The new hire may not be happy in the long run. Their dissatisfaction may be reflected in their performance, and ultimately they may leave your company as soon as the market turns around.

Hiring interim employees is the third consideration that often gets overlooked. This is a perfect time to engage top talent for interim employment. Interim employees work for you on a temporary basis, typically for a period of one month and up to one year. Interim employees do not receive benefits, which is huge savings to your organization. With interim employees, you can have top talent work on projects and initiatives that everyone has been too busy to do. The main purpose of the interim hire is to fill a gap and work on a specific project. The organization benefits because they get to address a much needed initiative. The interim hire benefits too. They gain meaningful work that helps them to bridge the employment gap until they can obtain a permanent full time position.

You may be concerned that an interim employee may leave before the project is completed. To minimize the possibility of an interim hire leaving prior to project completion, you can offer a bonus for the successful completion of the project. This approach not only encourages an interim hire to complete the project, it ties their performance to the success of the project as well. Interim employment is a terrific win-win for the company and for the interim hire.

Should you be hiring in a slow economy? First, take a hard look to make certain that 100% of your employees are meeting expectations. Replace under performers with people that will do the job. Look at your talent pool and determine if you have the talent that will be able to achieve your long term strategy. And, can you utilize interim hires on projects that you have been too busy to start. Considering the advantages that this market brings, the question no longer is should I be hiring in a slow economy, the question becomes, how many people should I be hiring right now?

Shari Roth is a managing partner of CAPITAL iDEA. An accomplished performance improvement consultant, Shari’s ability to simplify complex problems into effective solutions has driven notable results in the transportation, insurance, financial, hospitality and telecommunications industries. Shari’s focus is to create leadership cultures where employees are empowered, engaged, and aligned to achieve the organization’s desired results.
With over twenty years of experience in Fortune 500 companies, her clients find Shari’s unique blend of financial, marketing and sales expertise invaluable. Shari’s in depth knowledge and certifications in Behavioral, Motivator and Hartman Assessments contribute to her clients’ success in hiring and retaining top talent. Shari’s clients have seen improvements in employee retention, increased profitability, and customer growth.

Never before has cost-cutting been as important as it is right now. With economic futures for many still in doubt, companies on the rise that are expanding through recruiting initiatives need to do so on a fraction of the budgets they once had to play with. That excess waste and indiscriminate spending habits have to go, or your profit margins, already small, will quickly turn into losses. It’s not a pessimistic opinion; it’s the truth. Frugality pays off, particularly when times are tough.

So how do you reduce recruitment costs? There are a number of ways to do it, starting with an evaluation of recruitment needs. How many people do you need to hire? Is it necessary to add more personnel or can you combine responsibilities and give existing employees more work? In many cases the answer will be a combination of the two. You can shuffle work to other departments, but you’ll still need to add more bodies to your work force, just maybe not as many as you thought at first. Know what you need before you start spending money to go out and get it.

Spend your first recruitment dollars on a recruitment tracking system. There are quite a few of these to choose from, but make sure you get one that allows you to customize categories and files to suit your individual needs. The best applicant tracking software is the kind that has its operating components in the cloud, or in other words can be accessed and saved online. That helps you save on disc space and eliminates the need for memory upgrades every time you recruit.

Once you understand your needs and have a recruitment tracking database ready to go, choose your advertising mediums carefully. There are a number of free sources on the web that you can use instead of paying for newspaper ads. Among these are classified sites like craigslist, industry forums where folks in your business like to hang out, and student billboards for entry level positions. Start your free ads up a few days before you spend money on the paid media. You might fill your openings without spending a dime.

Don’t duplicate your efforts when you don’t have to. Use your job recruiting software to track candidates, interviews, notes, start dates, future calls, and anything else that you think might be useful to you on this recruitment drive or the next. Some of the folks you interview today might not be a good fit for this phase of your expansion, but could be okay for a later opening down the line. Will you lose the good candidates if you don’t hire them right away? The job market is pretty tough right now, so those who are available today could very likely still be on the market when you’re ready for them. It will be a lot cheaper to simply pick up the phone and call someone in than it will be to start an entirely new recruiting drive.

When hiring new employees, there cannot be a winner and a loser. A recent article in a major publication discussed how the power has shifted completely to companies doing the hiring in these economic conditions.

However, there is no power in a relationship that has to be win-win. If either side loses, everyone loses.

Let’s look at how employers are exercising this perceived advantage. Employers are taking much longer to make hiring decisions. They are putting more candidates through a greater number of hurdles during the selection process.

The first reaction to this is, “What were they doing before?” When has conducting a thorough selection process become an elective? A company has other problems if it takes a recession for a company to start implementing a thorough selection process.

The next way companies are taking advantage is in compensation. Some organizations are using weak economic conditions as an excuse to pay less than a fair wage. This is a very shortsighted strategy. The moment conditions change, and they will, employees will start hunting for better opportunities. Loyalty will be nothing more than a 7-letter word.

It helps to put the employment relationship in a different light. A job is nothing more than a “behavior rental agreement”. You enter into a contract with an employee and both parties need to hold up their end of the agreement.

You don’t hire a person because you like them or they look good in a suit. You hire an employee because you want something in return. You need a job done. You have a business need that needs to be satisfied. You hire someone to solve your problem.

And in return, you will offer compensation and an environment where the person can be successful. This really is a simple contract.

If you entered into a contract with a firm or person and they did not deliver, you would take action. The exact same principle holds true in the behavior rental agreement. The contract has been violated if the person does not deliver the results necessary for your business. The contract has been violated if you do not provide a fair wage and an environment to be successful.

Going back to the selection process, it is not an opportunity for either party to exert power over the other. Your selection process needs to be thorough and comprehensive. But it must also be completed as quickly as possible if you are going to address your business need. It makes no sense to take a long time to address a business need.