The hiring process, as many can attest, is an expensive one. There is no 99 cent store to browse where employers can find new workers. And realistically, if there were, the quality probably wouldn’t be worth opening your wallet.

Depending on the size of the company, the cost-per-hire can range from $2,885 for an organization with more than 20,000 employees to $7,645 for a business with 500 or less employees. That is a substantial chunk of change, and considering the fact that a bad hiring decision can equal 30% of first year potential earnings, making sure the right person is hired is paramount.

Finding quality candidates is consistently rated as the biggest recruiting challenge to organizations, garnering a 2.49 out of 3 on a scale from easiest to hardest. Of course, the hiring process includes many ways of weeding out those who are undeserving, but with an average of 250 resumes being received for each job position, companies may slip and invite someone who is unqualified in for an interview.

A hiring process that is too easy is a major problem for companies that want to differentiate the talented candidates from the unqualified ones. Of course, interviews should not feel like interrogations, but candidates should also not have their hands held or be asked softball questions. They need to be pushed in order to fully gauge their value.

With that in mind, below are four ways to ensure that your hiring process is not too easy.

Throw Multiple Balls in the Air

Don’t let the title fool you – I don’t mean this literally. At RecruitiFi, we like to use the “throwing balls in the air” metaphor to reference how well a candidate can juggle a number of different questions over the course of an interview. What this means is that after you ask one question, pose another, and then another. Later on, circle back to one of the other balls that is still in the air by saying something like, “You said before that you were part of a team whose marketing performance grew 120% over the past year. Can you talk about some of the ways you accomplished that?” By doing this, you will be able to determine how candidates can adjust from one train of thought to the next on the fly.

Make Sure All of the Balls are Settled by Interview's End

By the same token, you do not want to leave any balls up in the air when the interview ends. Doing so will leave the interviewee disoriented and confused, and will likely lower the odds that they will want to work for your company. The object of the interview is to judge if the candidate will be a fit, not throw them off their game to the point where they lose interest in the position.

Offer a Small Piece of Criticism to Gauge the Candidate's Reaction

Seeing how a job candidate deals with criticism is a good way of determining what type of person they are. Will they become defensive, or do they understand the purpose of constructive criticism, and thus are able to absorb the comment and mature? If the former applies, that is a big red flag. How can this candidate be expected to grow as an employee if they cannot adequately cope with criticism?

No More Cupcake Questions

Anyone can answer “Tell me about yourself,” which is ranked as the #1 question most likely to be asked on a job interview. While softball questions such as these go a long way towards establishing a foundation and finding out basic facts about the candidate, they do not test the limits of the candidate’s mind or push him to use critical thinking. For example, Apple asks its applicants “If you were a pizza deliveryman, how would you benefit from scissors?” The final answer is not as important as the train of thought it takes to get there, and companies that ask questions like these want to see how creative candidates are and how they work through difficult problems.

The hiring process should not be so easy that it allows for anyone with a mouth to talk their way into a job. The people you bring in for interviews are potential employees, and your employees are responsible for your company’s success. A simple conversation should not be the determining factor for making a hire, and by pressing candidates to use critical thinking, you will be able to find the most talented workers available.