Hiring staff is always the most difficult and challenging task for any business. You must do it right because your staff are the backbone of your business.
Start by making sure that you prepare a tight job specification. Doing this will sort the wheat from the chaff and will save time, effort and tears.
Then go to market. When I am hiring I advertise in the local paper and at the same time I ask everyone in the same industry whether they know somebody who is looking for a new job opportunity. You will find many people know someone like that.
I always avoid recruitment consultancies whenever possible. They are costly and often applicants who come in through an agency just as quickly depart through an agency. Sometimes the headhunter who brought them to you sits in the grass for a couple of years before preying on you once more. You have trained and invested in your staff over a prolonged period only for the same agency to poach them from you. This scenario is obviously a nightmare and best avoided.
It is my experience that you can’t beat a local approach for dedicated, loyal focused workers who will be with you for years.
In the past I used to pull in CVs for 50 to 100 appropriate applicants, but then I faced the arduous task of going through and reducing them to a short list. It doesn’t have to be like this, however, if you follow a few simple rules. Over the years I have devised a deduction strategy that has worked for me.
The first stage of reducing the number of applicants for a job is to look at aspects such as loyalty. If Billy Bob has had ten jobs in the past five years, discard him. On the other hand, if someone has had the same job for the past ten years and been made redundant, put him or her close to the top of your pile. Only then would I start to look at qualifications, where they live, their age and how well written the CV is.
When you are down to the last 20, start analysing the qualifications in depth. Then conduct short interviews. Do up to twenty 15-minute interviews.
Work out whether they are self- confident through such indicators as eye contact. Self-confidence is crucial. You don’t want somebody working for you that lacks self-belief.
At this stage, the question you ask is important. There is one question I always ask that immediately tells me whether they are up for it or not.
It is this: “What do you know about this company? What do you know about MY company?” If they sit there in bewilderment saying nothing, show them the door.
With your final candidates, it is not a perfect science. You have to trust your own personal judgment. Does the team player play it too safe? Is the maverick too much of a wild card? Who is it going to be? You have to decide. Follow your instincts, combined with the knowledge of your experience or by drawing from mine as outlined here, and you will be in a stronger position than most.
Next week: sales and marketing
