Are you a manager for a company or do you own a company? At some point you will need to hire staff if you are scaling for growth. Either instance needs to think carefully and follow a defined checklist in order to “hire right”. Hiring the wrong individual can lead to thousands of lost profit due to employee training, benefits, and processing. Go in with a clear, unwavering plan and you will succeed.
1. Define what you need.
2. Write a job description.
3. Salary or contract.
4. Develop a scorecard.
5. Develop and post job ad.
6. Process applicants and schedule preliminary phone interviews.
7. Pick top 3-5 applicants, schedule on site face to face interviews.
8. Interview and use score card.
9. Place the candidates in order of 1-3. Send offer letter to applicant #1.
This is the process that I will discuss for the month of December. 9 steps is not that difficult to make sure any new employee-to-be is hired using the best data and with the best decisions.
For today we will start with item 1, Define What You Need.
This is not just what you need but who you need. Think about letting someone into your family, no matter the size you want someone who will fit in and be able to do the job.
If you select the wrong applicant you can end up with may be toxic to you or the existing staff! Below is a checklist to help guide you through this process:
1. What work responsibilities will be involved. List each one; especially any travel required.
2. Are you looking for someone to engage with customers?
3. Are you looking for an introvert or an extrovert?
4. Are you in a tight working space? Or does everyone work remote?
5. How are you planning to manage the new hire? Hands on or hands off?
6. Are you looking for someone good with computers, new technology?
7. Will your new role engage with specific customer base niche?
8. Does this resource need to be organized and think independently?
Take each of these questions and write them….trust me write them out. Writing will allow deeper thinking and you can refer back to review edits and adjustments. Every time I hire I have a small notebook for each position. I use it until a signed offer is received, then scan in the pages for a stored electronic folder. This helps me refer back to any needs during the process but also learn from each hire. Say someone leaves or I need to terminate. One of my personal steps is to review the hiring information, looking for anything that would have clued me into the future. If I see it apply changes to the next hiring round. If I see nothing – do sweat keep moving on.
