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)?.”
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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?”.
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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?”.
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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?”.
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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?”.
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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?”.
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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.
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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?.”
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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?”.
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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.
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