Small businesses usually do not have the budget for a Recruiting Department so they have to use all hands on deck when it comes time to finding a new body.
But waiting until it comes time to replace an employee can get them into trouble. Here are my Top 3 Tips for Hiring for a Small Business.
1. Don’t wait until you need to replace an employee to start looking for a replacement. Always be looking. And teach your management staff to always be looking. Ask them in every meeting who they have found to start a conversation with about his or her career. It is the least expensive and most effective way to find new employees.
2. Your goal should not be to hire an applicant, it should be to make sure there is a “job match.” Make sure you have a job description and you have written down the job related characteristics you want in a new hire for that position. What characteristics have you seen in top performers in the past? What characteristics have you seen in poor performers in the past? This allows you to force yourself to establish parameters for screening in and screening out new applicants.
3. Interviewing is all about gathering information. Make sure you use every tool at your disposal to gather information, i.e., the interview, pre-employment assessments, reference checks and background checks. Then use the questions you have derived from the assessments to ask in the interview and with reference checks.
Bottom line, make sure you are hiring intelligently.
Leroy Hamm, President
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