5 Essential Steps to Take Before Hiring Your Team
Small business owners know that every decision can have a huge impact on the success of their companies. One of the biggest choices that small business owners face is who to bring onto their crucial teams. After all, when you’re working with a smaller team, every team member brought on can be crucial. A good hire might be just the breakthrough your team needed, but a mistaken hire could cost you tens of thousands in lost profits.
If you’re considering hiring for your team, read through these essential steps to take before bringing someone on.
- Write a solid position description
Does your position description use words like “synergy” and “fast-paced” or “team-player”? It’s true that everyone wants a synergistic and fast-paced work environment filled with team players. However, putting these things on a job description offers neither you nor your applicant any information.
Nobody ever decided against applying for a job because they saw a requirement was being a “hard worker” and had the self-censoring abilities to realize they aren’t one and so not apply. Instead of including fluff words like these, craft a concise, well-written and accurate description of the position so applicants know well whether it’s something they’d be a good fit for.
- Advertise strategically
One of the most important parts of recruiting in the 21st century is being aware of where the most qualified and savvy applicants are hunting for jobs. Don’t waste your recruiting budget on an ad in the newspaper or on the back of a bus. Most contemporary applicants will not give these kinds of job ads a second thought.
Instead, seek out online platforms like LinkedIn, Indeed, and ZipRecruiter. These job boards make posting your position simply, quick, and clear, so applicants searching for work like your opening can find it easily.
- Background checks are a must
Did you know that about as many Americans have a criminal record as there are college degrees? This makes identity check services a necessary step in your recruiting process. Remember, when you bring someone onto your team, it’s your small business’s profits, growth, and reputation on the line.
The last thing you want to deal with is your new hire pilfering from the office, harassing fellow employees, or angrily running someone over with the company car. Before you make your next hire, you must screen applicants to be sure you’re bringing only the most qualified and trustworthy people onto your team.
- Select strategic salaries
Looking over your hiring budget, you might see that you have some wiggle-room for hiring more or less costly employees. One important step to take is to research what the average salaries for similar positions to the one you’re hiring are. Some hiring managers put an ad online advertising a position, thinking the salary they’re offering is reasonable and fair.
If you’re working with a budget, it might be worth reconsidering the amount you had planned on spending on that new hire. You may find that an entry-level employee can do the work reasonably well, and will be much more willing to work for lower pay and experience than a seasoned professional.
- Craft your interview questions
Interviews are a necessary step in the hiring process. They serve several purposes:
- Let you get face to face impression of the person you’re thinking of hiring.
- Give you a chance to see how quick your potential hire is on their feet, and how comfortable they are talking through issues under pressure.
- Allow you to see how knowledgeable about your industry an applicant might be without having a search engine nearby to answer anything they might not know.
Because interviews serve such a crucial purpose for making hiring decisions, the questions you ask must be clear, direct, and incisive. Saying, “Tell us about your experience,” may offer some info, but won’t get you nearly so much useful information as a question like, “Give us an example of a disagreement you had with a manager and how you handled it.”
Asking for information that requires fact-based, narrative answers will give you much more valuable insight into the candidate.
The next time you go to hire for your team and build your brand, plan, think through the essential steps, and take your time. In the long run, your business is sure to benefit from bringing on the best talent.
