As an entrepreneur, you have dozens of decisions to make. At some point, you’ll need to hire employees. The decisions you make about hiring workers have a huge impact in your business. Finding the right employees can help you increase your sales and profits dramatically. However, hiring the wrong people can be expensive and stressful. Use these tips to hire great people for your new business:
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Understand yourself
One reason to hire employees is to add people who have different skills than you do. So, consider what your personal strengths and weaknesses are. One way to do this is to take a personality assessment. You can find several free assessments online.
Say, for example, that you own a small business that manufactures sporting goods equipment. Your assessment indicates that you lean toward being an introvert. If that’s the case, you need someone who is more extroverted to handle your sales. You’re hiring someone, because you know that selling is not a strong skill for you.
Making choices about your firm
As owner of the business, you get to choose many of the factors that will affect your employees. Your choices will impact a job candidate’s decision to come to your firm or work elsewhere. The decisions you make will also impact an employee’s decision to stay with your firm or search for another opportunity.
Your choices should be clearly stated in your job description and during interviews. Keep in mind that the Internet allows a huge number of candidates to find your job description quickly. Candidates can access an online job resource that allows them to search for jobs by type, industry and location.
Consider these factors regarding your business:
- Salary levels: Many entrepreneurs make the mistake of not offering a competitive salary to job candidates. Money can be tight in a new business. However, many business owners find that they hire people who aren’t qualified if the compensation is too low. They spend even more money hiring, training, firing and hiring again. You may be better off by simply offering a higher salary.
- Benefits: The cost of health care increases every year. Work with a benefit company to decide if you can afford to offer benefits. This is another factor that can help you attract talented people.
- Work environment: You get to decide the type of work environment your employees will experience. Many companies are moving toward casual dress, including jeans. Firms are offering flexible hours and the opportunity to work from home. These factors may be important to good job candidates.
- Part-time or full-time: Decide whether you would like to work full-time or part-time. You could even get hired as a temporary agency worker.
Vetting your employees
Once you write a complete job description and decide on compensation, you’ll need to interview candidates. This process can be different for an entrepreneur who is new to the process. Follow these steps to vet your job candidates:
- References: One of the best tools to assess a candidate is contacting their references. Ask for former managers and employers as references. You should personally call each reference and ask for their opinion about the candidate.
- Adaptability: If you’re starting a business, you have to wear many different hats. The same is true for your staff. It’s critical that you hire people who can quickly adapt to change. Make sure that your job description clearly states that the job may change over time. Ask about that topic in an interview.
- Background checks: You should perform some level of background check on every candidate. An entrepreneur may need to quickly shift a great deal of responsibility to their staff. If a worker isn’t ethical, they can do great damage to your firm, including fraud or theft. Speak with an attorney to decide what type of background check is appropriate, given the job description.
Use all of these tips to write your job description, decide on salaries and vet your job candidates. Managing people can be very time-consuming. Implement these ideas to hire great employees.
About Carson Derrow
