How to Find the Right Staff for your Business

Having the right staff is absolutely crucial if you want to run a successful business. Hiring the wrong person can have impacts not only on that person’s job, but on the morale of the other people working around them, and on your customer service. The estimated cost of replacing an employee is around $15,000!

It can be tricky to truly know what someone is like from their resumé and the interview process alone. People can easily embellish their resumé or be charming in the interview in a way that never quite materializes when they sit down at their desk to work! So how can you be sure that you are hiring the right person for your business?

Interns can be a great investment

Hiring interns can be a great way to get some fresh perspective on your business ideas, and it’s great for the intern too, because they can gain valuable work experience. Beyond the actual internship, having a pool of interns is a great way of forming a group of people who you already know can work competently, and therefore who you could potentially hire on a permanent basis. You will have provided your interns with training in your business and how you work, which allows them to “hit the ground running.” Plus, you already know where their strengths and weaknesses lie so if a permanent position comes up, you’ll have a good idea of how suited to it they would be.

So how do you find good interns? When selecting your interns it can be worth approaching your old college professors and asking them to recommend students who they think would be a good fit for your company. By doing this you can be very specific about the type of person you are looking for and get honest feedback on who would be right for your company, which you can’t always get through standard recruiting processes.

Utilize social media

Many of the Fortune 500 companies advertise their vacancies through social media. The people who see job adverts on your social media pages are already interested in your company, because they are following you. This is a great way of guaranteeing more enthusiastic applicants than those who come through a job board. People who come through your social media pages are usually specifically interested in working for you, rather than just looking for work in general.

You can also tell a great deal about a person by taking the time to look at their social media accounts, such as how they conduct themselves during debates and whether they are respectful of other people. These points can be good indicators of how appropriate they will be for your company.

Check compatibility

Compatibility with your existing employees is essential. Allow your employees to be part of the recruitment process—let them meet the candidates and help you to design the recruitment process based on the in-depth knowledge they have of doing their job day after day. As a bonus, this will make your existing employees feel more valued and trusted, so your relationship with them will be strengthened, too.

Carry out background checks

If your potential employee is deliberately hiding a piece of information from you then you are unlikely to tease it out of them by getting creative with your recruitment process alone. Consider making use of background check services who will be able to offer multi-jurisdictional searches of state- and county criminal records to make sure that you are made aware of any hidden surprises, before you make the offer of employment.

Are they a committed employee?

Ideally, you don’t want to hire someone who is going to quit within the first six months. Sometimes this is completely unavoidable due to circumstances that nobody could predict, but there are some indicators for loyal employees that you can be on the lookout for.

Length of employment isn’t everything. Someone can be incredibly committed, add a tremendous amount of value and not stay with your company forever. However, if your potential employee has changed jobs every six months for the past three years this does indicate a pattern that you may want to be mindful of. It’s also worth paying attention to how they talk about their current role. Yes, someone’s current role could be absolutely atrocious, but the way that they talk about it speaks volumes. If they put a lot of blame on their current employers it could be that their attitude isn’t right for you.

Test analytical and problem-solving skills

You need to know that your potential new employee can solve problems and think on their feet. It can be effective to design a test to take place during the interview that demonstrates the candidate’s ability to solve problems. This is even more effective if it’s the type of problem that they are likely to encounter on the job, so this is another scenario where input from your current employees is valuable. These tests aren’t necessarily to establish if the candidate already knows how to solve the problem, but more to check for a logical and methodical approach. If designing a test isn’t right for you, then you could ask interview questions that check for problem-solving ability instead.

Observe them in different scenarios

Try taking your interviewee on a tour of the office to see how they interact with other members of staff and how they conduct themselves on a personal level. Check to see how they interact with staff of a higher and a lower level than them, whether they hold doors open for people, whether they smile or retreat into themselves. These sorts of traits will tell you a little about what kind of person they are and whether they are likely to be a good fit for the role. If it’s at all practical you could consider taking the candidate out for a meal or to a coffee shop, as observing how they act in a more relaxed social scenario can be valuable.

Separate problem solvers from problem bringers

Forbes suggests a simple question to weed out problem bringers: “Could you tell me about a time when you were given an assignment and you lacked the necessary skills or knowledge?”

If the candidate places blame and talks about the reasons they didn’t succeed, then this may be an indicator of a “problem bringer.” However, if they talk about how they used a situation where they didn’t have the skills or knowledge that they needed as an opportunity for growth then this signifies a more positive attitude, which could be valuable to you.

Iterate your hiring process

Treat your hiring process as you would any other process. Note which methods you used to recruit and what the quality of applicants was, in order to inform your decisions in the future. Collect feedback from applicants about their thoughts on the process, and keep in touch with your new recruits and the existing staff members they are working with to see how they are fitting in. If there are problems, think about ways you could screen for these in the next iteration of the hiring process. And by the same token, any part of the hiring process that highlighted great qualities to you are worth keeping.