Social Light has been sharing their growth challenges of hiring by offering tips for the application and interview process that can benefit job candidates as well as business owner. Nicole Krug asked me to share steps for success within a strong hiring process. What a business owner does before, during and after the interview is how we can ensure we hire the right person.
Does this sound familiar?
Most business owners have this story. They hired their neighbor’s aunt’s daughter back from college. And she is soooo nice. Everyone, including you, really likes her. She is available and willing. But before long, you find that you are writing your letters twice because the draft gets so mutilated that it is easier to start over than trying to fix the “edits” she helped finish.
Or have you ever assigned an employee a research project with a report result of “nothing out there” YET when you conduct a 5 minute search on your iPhone (while standing in line at the grocery store) you ended up with 3 possible matches?
And I know you don’t even want to talk about how the new office manager bounced a payroll check.
Hiring is a process – it starts with preparation
The easiest first step is to commit to yourself and your business the time to do this correctly. Commit to creating the documents you need and understanding that it will take a full 3 – 6 months before an employee is 100% ready to be left on their own. Then we need to put in work ourselves before interviewing.
- Job Description – Create an internal job description – what are the responsibilities for this position?
- Requirements -Using the job description determine the non-negotiable skills and personality traits.
- Employment Ad – Based on the internal job description and the requirements.
Before you place that newly written employment, we prepare for the after interview…
- Reference Checks – create a process
- Procedure manual – Create documentation on how employees should actually perform the tasks!
- Employee /Policies Handbook – This spells out HOW your company works
- Design a First Day – give the employee time and energy about THEM before you make it all about you and your needs.
- Training – lay out a schedule and the tools needed
Hiring doesn’t happen overnight
Now we can place the ad. Hiring the right person (Qualified, interviewed and reference checked) with explicit expectations (job description) and training (procedure manuals) is the business owner’s odyssey. It seems that it is an experience that we all must endure.
Keep in mind, impatience is the enemy of a good hire.
Could you find the perfect person just by word of mouth and within a week of having a need? Yes.
Could a person have 100% comprehension of your business, the job’s tasks and the initiative to just get it done? Yes.
But neither of these things are likely alone, much less when you are hoping this works out because you “don’t have time” to train them and they are supposed to be “helping you”. Taking the time to have it done right will build a team to be proud of and a reputation as a company where others will want to work.
Now go, GROW!
Talmar Anderson is the Founder of Talmar It Up, LLC an operations and management consulting firm that specializes in working with business owners to create paths for growth and the foundations to grow upon! Talmar is also Host of the Business Side of Business Podcast.