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How to Hire the Right Employee, First Time Round

Categories: Small Business
9 February 2016

With good planning, great service, happy customers, and yes, some luck, you could be looking to expand your small business or medium sized enterprise in 2016. But with unemployment rates low, and competition for jobs high, getting the right person to work for you can prove more difficult than it seems.

While we’re not going to pretend there’s a magic formula for getting a great candidate 100% of the time, by following the steps on this list, you will greatly increase your chances of hiring someone who fits with your business.

Pre-Planning

Whether you’re advertising on Facebook, LinkedIn, your own website or the local newspaper, an up to date job description is something that you should spend plenty of time on. Quite often, businesses will use the same job description they’ve been using for years, or even re-use one that got them someone who didn’t work out!

Include what you would like the candidate to have as a minimum under the heading “essential attributes/minimum requirements” and then include other positive, but not critical factors under the heading “desirable attributes/additional requirements”.

Get Your Team Involved

If you are hiring someone who will be working with another person in your business more than they will be working with you, it makes sense to have your current employee involved in some way in the interview.

Having another person in the room will give you a valuable second opinion, while it is also a useful opportunity for you to observe the potential employee as they respond to someone else.

Ask Situational Questions

Interview questions are moving away from the stock standard open-ended questions that most people are used to. It has been found that questions that allow employees to respond to specific scenarios that are representative of the job they are applying for are much better predictors of success.

You can supply a question like this to those you are interviewing in the time before the interview to give them time to formulate an answer, or alert them that a real life type situation will be given to them in the interview, which will encourage them to research your business or the industry before they walk in the door. Either way, you learn something valuable about the candidate.

Finding the right people to work for you is so important, as are the conditions you offer them.

If you have any questions around employee superannuation or how to plan your business finances for growth the Scott Partners team is here to help. Just give us a call and schedule an appointment with our friendly, professional team.

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