I wanted to share something that I thought would be an interesting topic for the group on Recruiting Blogs. I wrote this on our job site www.shinyneedle.com earlier today. Deciding if and when you should convert temp hires to full time can be a very difficult decision. For one you probably decided to start them out as a temp because of cost, but it could also be because of concerns. The idea is that it lets you test someone out and see how it goes. If they are successful and interact well with the team you bring them on permanently. That is easier said than done with a busy daily schedule on top of interviewing the others in the organization to make sure it’s a good fit. With that in mind we had some thoughts as to how you could approach this decision point. It frankly is one of the reasons the ShinyNeedle.com service was set-up in the first place. It allows the employer to get a look into how the potential job candidate would operate in their company before it’s to late.

Here are a few pointers:
1) Look for simple cues from others to see if the person is a good fit. If they don’t immediately say that we need to keep this person and that they are great think twice. Dig deeper and try and understand why. If someone is really that good the answer will most likely be keep him or her with no doubt.

2) Ask others about conversation contribution in meetings. Did they interact in ways that provided value and even pushed the thinking in the room? If you find that they are doing those things you may have a winner.

3) Any complaining? Are they already coming to you with issues that seem inconsequential to the business at hand? If they don’t constantly come to you with issues, and you see that they work well with others you might have a self-starter on your hands. This is of course a great thing most of the time.

4) Have they presented ideas to you without asking permission? Even if the idea isn’t completely on target it means they care and are very focused on your specific business. This can be an incredible asset for the entire company.

Even with all the above ideas and things to look out for you can still make a mistake on a new hire. The idea of this is to reduce those mistakes and make that percentage very small. It will make a huge financial impact, but even more importantly you’ll be growing a strong web of talented employees. If you have other ideas or questions let us know on Twitter (@shinyneedle) or send an email to contact@shinyneedle.com. Thanks for the input in advance.