In order to grow your business you have to hire people.  You can’t perform all of the task required in a growing business by yourself.  Hiring the right people is critical.  Hiring the right people will ensure that your investment in them will not be a waste and that you will have a low turn over rate. 

 

Focusing on these 10 items will significantly increase your chances of hiring the right person.

 

 

1. Capability:

The person you hire must not only be capable of performing the job as you define it today but must also be capable of handling other tasks that you may throw at them.  You can’t possibly predict and include every task in a job description that you draft today.  There are always unforseen tasks that will have to be performed.  Your business will grow and you will offer new products and services and cater to a larger customer base.  This will require the people you hire to grow with the business and take on additional responsibilities.  Hence, they must demonstrate the capability to grow with your business.  During the interview process you can ask:  “Are you willing to acquire new skills and take on new tasks as the company grows, even if some of those tasks turn out to be unconventional (or out of the ordinary)?.”

 

2.  Character:

 

Character is the willingness to live up to the ideals of honesty, integrity, honor, sacrifice, selflessness, caring, commitment, competence, etc.  Assess candidates for the job to identify whether or not they are willing to live by these ideals.  Get feedback from their references on these qualities.  You have to ask the right questions to assess these things.  You can ask the following question:  “How have you dealt with a situation where you were wrongly accused of something? or “How have you dealth with a difficult supervisor?”. 

 

3.  Compatability:

 

As your business grows you will hire more employees.  These individuals not only have to be compatible with you, they also have to be compatible with other employees.  They also have to be compatible with your clients.  Employees have to be tolerant, patient and posess good communication skills in order to be compatible.  During the interview process you have to determine whether the candidates can pass this test.  During the inverview process you can ask them to do the following: “Describe the environment in which you ve worked in before?  Describe the personalities and background of some of the people you’ve worked with?.  How well did you get along with other employees you’ve worked with?.  Give an example of a difficult situation you’ve encountered with another employee and how you handled it?”.

 

4.  Commitment:

 

A commited person is someone who is willing to see something through.  In other words they do their level best to complete an assigned task.   They feel obligated to get the job done regardless of the circumstances.  This is the kind of person you want on your team.  During the interview process you can ask a question such as: “Were you ever given a tough assignment that you did not complete?”.

 

5.  Compensation:

 

If you want to attract a certain type of candidate for the job you have to offer the right incentives.  If the pay is low you will find that low skill and un-skill candidates will be the only ones applying for the job.  Know what the industry pay scale is for the type of job you’re hiring for and offer a competitive rate.  Remember that you’re competing with other businesses in your area and across the country.  Compensation includes Cash payment, regular Leave, Sick Leave, Health Insurance, Educational Benefits, Retirement Plan, etc.  You don’t have to all of these if you can’t afford it.  Offer what you can afford.  Ask:  “What is important from a compensation standpoint for you?”. 

 

6.  Competence:

 

Competence is the ability to perform assigned tasks properly and posesses the ability to exercise good judgment.  The individual must know how to exercise critical thinking and navigate their way through challenging situations and accomplish the tasks.  Competent individuals do not require much supervision and can be left unsupervised to get the job done.  These are the kind of people you want to hire.  Ask the candidate:  “Were you often assigned a task and left alone to accomplish it with little or no supervision?”.  “Can you give some examples?”.

 

7.  Culture:

 

Every business has a culture.  The business culture is how people conduct themselves and interact with each other.  The culture reflects the values that the organization deems important for everyone to conform to.  Policies and procedrues are implemented in order to clarify to employees what the acceptable standards of conduct are.  The people you hire must be willing and able to comform to those policies and procedures that reflects the culture of the business.  Individuals who like to go their own way and do their own thing will not do well in a culture that requires cooperation and collaboration.  Define your business culture and find the people who are willing to comply with it.  Learn more about building an organizational culture.

 

8.  Initiative:

 

Initiative is the ability to recognize an opportunity and take advantage of it before anyone else does.  People who have demonstrated initiative have the ability to recognize problems, devise solutions and implement those solutions.  As your business grows and you move into unchartered territory these are the kind of people you want to surround yourself with.  To identify these individuals during the interview process ask the following question.  Give me an example of a situation where you’ve identified a problem before anyone else saw it and came up with a solution to that problem that was implemented?.”

 

9.  Personality:

 

The American Psychological Association defines personality as “differences in characteristic patterns of thinking, feeling and behaving”.   There are two main personality types, Introverts and Extraverts.  Introverts are people who are sky and are comfortable keeping to themselves.  Extraverts are more outgoing and are comfortable interacting with other people.  We assess people’s personality through their actions, attitudes and behavior.  Having the people with the right attitude is important to creating an environment where people are happy to come to work.  A positive and happy personality is infectuous.  You can identify people’s personality by asking the following questions:  “Are you comfortable working alone or do you prefer to work with others?”. 

 

10. Skills:

In order to properly perform assigned tasks the employees must have the right skills.  If it is critical that an employee have the required skills from day-one then focus on t hose candidates that already have the skills that you need.  If you can find someone with the right skills that employee can hit the ground running without a train up period.   Certain skills required intense training, licensening and can come at a high cost.  Identify the skills you want your employees to have and pursue the candidates who posess those skills.