Hiring a new person is always challenging! Small business owners are juggling different priorities and hiring should be high in the list. You must not hire just a warm body that may do the job, you need to get the best talent you can! You need to hire the best candidate to avoid a high turnover which could be very expensive. What to do? Plan, Do, Act!
Plan: Think ahead! Do you really need that new person? Can your company afford it? Check your finances and revenue trends. Do you know your company manpower needs? Is this going to be an independent contractor or an employee? Make sure you have job descriptions that do list the duties and responsibilities going from general to specific; this will help you in the recruiting, hiring and employment process. State job qualifications and be careful with any language stating any preference for a particular gender, age, race, etc.
Do: Post the jobs in different places (newspaper, internet). Screen resumes, narrow the pool of candidates, create a short list of best candidates, and prescreen them by making a phone call. Once you have the best candidates have a face to face interview. Prepare your questions for the interview, avoid the yes/no questions. Ask open ended questions, allow the candidate to talk about their qualifications. You may want to have an interview panel. While interviewing take good notes, you may need them later! Evaluate the candidates’ answers critically.
Act. Move fast! Once you have your best candidate, you need to check their references! If the references have checked out and you have no doubts, make an offer. A candidate will not wait weeks for an answer. If the candidate has accepted your offer, then get some feedback to get a sense of the recruiting experience. Start the onboarding process.
Hiring people is not easy! By being careful in the recruiting and hiring process you may avoid the turnover costs and, most likely, you will get a great employee that will help you grow your business. That new worker may be the next supervisor or manager you need in the future!
Great article, exactly what I wanted to find.