How to Make Great Hires for Your Business: 5 Important Steps to Take
One of the best things about owning your own company is the complete and total control you have over the hiring process. However, just because you have flexibility, it doesn’t automatically make finding the right hires easy. Acquiring the right candidate takes time and patience.
How to Hire the Right Person at Your Company
Whether your candidates are applying to two jobs at the same company or focusing their efforts towards one position, here’s how to hire the right person at your company every single time.
1. Research Job Descriptions and Make Your Own Clickable Job Title
Start your recruitment journey by looking at similar job descriptions and scanning resumes of other qualified applicants to understand what experience and skills are needed for the role. Look at job trends, titles, and keywords that your competitors use to be searchable on Google.
Once your candidates know how to find you, you can start working on your job title and description. Make a descriptive, eye-catching title and a description that’s clear and meaningful. Your career pages should reflect your company culture and the expectations for the role.
2. Avoid Standard, Choreographed Job Interviews
A standard job interview filled with typical questions won’t find you the best candidates. Your job prospects have rehearsed these questions, so you need to throw in a few curveballs. Ask what animal they’d want to be and why or make scenario-based questions that relate to their job.
You can get even more creative by leaving the office for the interview. Share a meal at a restaurant together and see if they’re kind to the staff. Remember that the goal of any interview is to see if they’re interested in working with you and if they treat people as equals.
3. Review Candidates With a Second, and Third, Opinion
We all fall victim to our biases. Even something as simple as eye contact can make an employer reject a candidate. Having a group of people in the room during the interview or playing a candidate’s interview back to a panel of managers can help reduce biases in the hiring process.
Not only that, but other managers may see something you missed, whether it’s positive or negative. Before hiring any of your candidates, perform a bit of internet sleuthing. A LinkedIn profile can help you gain insight into a person’s strengths, weaknesses, and network.
4. Push For Diversity and Innovation in Your Company
Another thing that could be holding your hiring process back is implicit biases. We all have them, but the faster you acknowledge and work through them, the more diverse your hiring process will be. But don’t beat yourself up; most of us don’t hire discriminately on purpose.
To see if there’s bias in your process, look at your candidates. Do they come from the same backgrounds? Are they the same gender, race, or age? If they are, you need to cast a wider net. Tools like textio can help you analyze language in your descriptions to attract more varied hires.
5. Don’t Drop the Ball When it Comes to Training and Onboarding
Finding the right candidate is one thing; onboarding them correctly is another. Even your best hires will look unequipped for their roles without proper training. A poor onboarding process will make it hard to figure out if new hires are a good culture fit or if they get along with others.
We recommend setting up a team lunch on the first day, so everyone can get to know each other. It’s also a good idea to assign a deadline-free homework assignment during the first week. If they hand in their work promptly, that will determine their level of work ethic in the future.
