It’s a good sign when your business is doing so well you can hire additional staff. However, it also can raise your blood pressure a bit as you are venturing into new territory. How many do you hire? Who do you hire? What qualifications should they have? How do you make sure you hire the right staff? Great staff can be tremendously beneficial to your business.
Define the job and the ideal employee:
If you are really under the gun you may be thinking I just need someone to help. But, you want to clearly define what role you need to hire for. For example, if the phones are ringing off the hook and the paperwork is overwhelming you need an office manager. But, that is a broad term so you will want to break down the role further with a job analysis. You want to think about the specific responsibilities and qualifications of the job. You also want to examine what skills the person must have to be considered versus what skills you can train a person to do.
Recruiting strategy:
Hiring great staff takes time. You may not have the time to vet out all the applications that come in for a position. A staffing company can help you create a recruiting strategy to help you hire the right people. They will need information from you like a job description and necessary qualifications. Recruiters can also make sure you are attracting the best talent. You need to be competitive to get the top talent. You need a salary that is fair, good benefits, and anything else that would attract job seekers to your company. Once recruiters know what you need they can send qualified applicants your way for final interviews and approval.
Numbers:
How much staff do you need and how much can you afford? You don’t want to be overstaffed and have idle employees. But, you don’t want to be understaffed and stressed out. You want to see how many are required to do each job. If your business has longer hours, how many will you need per job, per shift?
Review the applications:
You want to ensure the applicants have the qualifications necessary for the job. Many people apply for jobs they don’t qualify for. There is software available to make the process easier but use that with caution. It uses keywords to vet out applications, but you want to make sure it’s not tossing out good applications.
Pre-screen:
A person may look great on paper, but they may not be a good fit. You don’t want to go through the entire interview process before learning this. You can easily conduct a pre-screening phone interview to make sure you are both are on the same page with salary requirements, hours, work environment, and the job description. This pre-screen will also give you a feel for the person’s personality too. You want a good cultural fit in the business.
Ask the right questions:
This goes beyond the typical ‘tell me about yourself?’ or ‘why do you want to work here?’ You want questions that reveal more about how the individual works. How do they handle conflict? When have they failed and how did they remedy the situation? These questions will tell you about their critical thinking skills and cultural fit.
Gather input:
Consider having more than one person in the room during the interview. You may think a person is great, but someone else may be seeing some red flags. Having multiple people review each applicant can help avoid bad hiring choices.
Background check:
If the interview went well, you may want to immediately extend a job offer. But, you don’t want to jump in quite yet. A background check is an important step you don’t want to neglect. People can seem great on paper or in the interview. A background check will reveal if this person is as great as they seem. Hiring employees is an investment and firing is difficult. You want to get a background check done to avoid a potential disaster.
Looking to hire more staff but don’t know where to start? Want to hire great people, but don’t have the time? Let the experts at Boutique Recruiting help. Our team has over 50 years of combined experience. We work hard to recruit the best staff for your business. Contact us today.
