Hiring is a big commitment to undertake, but you don’t have to make it harder on yourself.
Hiring is a big commitment to undertake, but you don’t have to make it harder on yourself. Below, we walk through some tips and advice you should follow to have an effective and successful hiring process.
Recruiting
Don’t rely solely on online job postings
Online job boards and sites are a great way to get your open position in front of a lot of people. However, they aren’t always the best way to attract top talent. When recruiting for your company, you should also be leveraging your network. This means asking employees for referrals and going to industry events and conferences. If you’re looking to hire a marketing manager, for instance, you might want to attend a conference for your industry or go to a specific marketing event in your city.
Have specific job titles, duties and qualifications
Having an accurate and clear job title and description will typically improve the quality of applications you receive. If you post a job ad seeking “general help” for your construction business, you might be inundated with resumes from people in food services. Instead, you should have a specific job title (“Construction Estimator”) and a list of clear job responsibilities (“defining the scope of work and preparing a comprehensive budget and conceptual estimates for each project”) and qualifications (“5 years of experience in residential construction or reconstruction required”).
Interviewing
Phone interview first
According to a Forbes article, the average number of people who apply for any given job is 118. Looking through that many resumes is already a lot of work, so you don’t need to burden yourself with additional work during your interviewing process. Phone interviewing applicants first will help you weed out unqualified candidates with the least amount of work. A standard phone interview normally lasts 20 to 30 minutes, but if the interview is not going well a phone interview is much easier to cut short than an in-person interview.
Have them interview with their prospective team members
One of the best things you can do during the hiring process is to involve your employees. For each candidate you select for an interview, you should have them speak with their prospective team members. Your employees who would work directly with the candidate can offer valuable insight into how the candidate might perform if hired. Moreover, you’re more likely to hire someone who will blend in well with the current team if you involve your employees in the process.
Do reference checks
Reference checks are another invaluable tool during the hiring process. Reference checks are like a second opinion, letting you get another viewpoint on the candidate aside from what you heard in the interview. They also can save you from hiring a poor candidate — some people may interview extremely well, but not perform the job well, and the only way to find this out early on is through a reference check.
Compensation
Offer market-rate salaries
If you want to hire good talent, you’ve got to be willing to pay them well. Most job seekers are looking to increase their current salaries or receive a competitive compensation package. There are two easy ways you can get the information you need to offer an appropriate salary. The first is to do research on a website like Glassdoor. For example, the average salary for a store manager in Reno, NV is approximately $45,000, while the national average is $50,000. This can help you set a good baseline for the salary.
The second way to do research is to ask your interviewees about their desired salary range. Based on the number of people you interview, this can either confirm your baseline or help you readjust. Using the example above, if most of your interviewees say they are looking for a $50,000 a year salary for the store manager position, you may want to offer $50,000 instead of $45,000. Conversely, if many say they are looking for $40,000, you can offer that or a salary in between that and your baseline (say $42,000) to be more competitive.
Needless to say, if you truly can’t afford to pay a competitive salary, you should reassess whether you should be hiring anyone at all (and taking out a loan to cover an employee’s salary is oftentimes not a good idea).
Provide industry standard benefits and perks (or better!)
As an employer, you generally aren’t required to provide retirement plans, health plans (except in Hawaii), dental or vision plans, life insurance or paid time off, including vacations, holidays or sick leave. However, just because you don’t have to provide these benefits doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t. While many small business owners worry that they can’t afford benefits or perks, they are missing out on a valuable opportunity to attract great hires and jumpstart their growth if they don’t.
Offering great benefits also doesn’t mean you need to have the perks you frequently hear about in Silicon Valley (yoga classes, on-site massage therapist, etc.). Instead, think about what’s standard practice in your industry and how you might want to improve on that.
For example, if most businesses in your industry offer health insurance, retirement plans and two weeks of paid time off, you should consider offering the same benefits to remain competitive. If you want to improve on this, you could cover more of the health plan cost or offer a better employer match for your 401(k) plan. According to a survey by Monster, health plans (32 percent), vacation time (25 percent) and pay raises (15 percent) were the three most important benefits that employees wanted.
There are some legal and tax ramifications to providing benefits to your employees, so it’s wise to hire a third-party administrator or consultant. A good TPA will help you get everything set up correctly so you can avoid expensive headaches later on.
Hiring is a big commitment to undertake, but you don’t have to make it harder on yourself. Below, we walk through some tips and advice you should follow to have an effective and successful hiring process.
Recruiting
Don’t rely solely on online job postings
Online job boards and sites are a great way to get your open position in front of a lot of people. However, they aren’t always the best way to attract top talent. When recruiting for your company, you should also be leveraging your network. This means asking employees for referrals and going to industry events and conferences. If you’re looking to hire a marketing manager, for instance, you might want to attend a conference for your industry or go to a specific marketing event in your city.
Have specific job titles, duties and qualifications
Having an accurate and clear job title and description will typically improve the quality of applications you receive. If you post a job ad seeking “general help” for your construction business, you might be inundated with resumes from people in food services. Instead, you should have a specific job title (“Construction Estimator”) and a list of clear job responsibilities (“defining the scope of work and preparing a comprehensive budget and conceptual estimates for each project”) and qualifications (“5 years of experience in residential construction or reconstruction required”).
Interviewing
Phone interview first
According to a Forbes article, the average number of people who apply for any given job is 118. Looking through that many resumes is already a lot of work, so you don’t need to burden yourself with additional work during your interviewing process. Phone interviewing applicants first will help you weed out unqualified candidates with the least amount of work. A standard phone interview normally lasts 20 to 30 minutes, but if the interview is not going well a phone interview is much easier to cut short than an in-person interview.
Have them interview with their prospective team members
One of the best things you can do during the hiring process is to involve your employees. For each candidate you select for an interview, you should have them speak with their prospective team members. Your employees who would work directly with the candidate can offer valuable insight into how the candidate might perform if hired. Moreover, you’re more likely to hire someone who will blend in well with the current team if you involve your employees in the process.
Do reference checks
Reference checks are another invaluable tool during the hiring process. Reference checks are like a second opinion, letting you get another viewpoint on the candidate aside from what you heard in the interview. They also can save you from hiring a poor candidate — some people may interview extremely well, but not perform the job well, and the only way to find this out early on is through a reference check.
Compensation
Offer market-rate salaries
If you want to hire good talent, you’ve got to be willing to pay them well. Most job seekers are looking to increase their current salaries or receive a competitive compensation package. There are two easy ways you can get the information you need to offer an appropriate salary. The first is to do research on a website like Glassdoor. For example, the average salary for a store manager in Reno, NV is approximately $45,000, while the national average is $50,000. This can help you set a good baseline for the salary.
The second way to do research is to ask your interviewees about their desired salary range. Based on the number of people you interview, this can either confirm your baseline or help you readjust. Using the example above, if most of your interviewees say they are looking for a $50,000 a year salary for the store manager position, you may want to offer $50,000 instead of $45,000. Conversely, if many say they are looking for $40,000, you can offer that or a salary in between that and your baseline (say $42,000) to be more competitive.
Needless to say, if you truly can’t afford to pay a competitive salary, you should reassess whether you should be hiring anyone at all (and taking out a loan to cover an employee’s salary is oftentimes not a good idea).
Provide industry standard benefits and perks (or better!)
As an employer, you generally aren’t required to provide retirement plans, health plans (except in Hawaii), dental or vision plans, life insurance or paid time off, including vacations, holidays or sick leave. However, just because you don’t have to provide these benefits doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t. While many small business owners worry that they can’t afford benefits or perks, they are missing out on a valuable opportunity to attract great hires and jumpstart their growth if they don’t.
Offering great benefits also doesn’t mean you need to have the perks you frequently hear about in Silicon Valley (yoga classes, on-site massage therapist, etc.). Instead, think about what’s standard practice in your industry and how you might want to improve on that.
For example, if most businesses in your industry offer health insurance, retirement plans and two weeks of paid time off, you should consider offering the same benefits to remain competitive. If you want to improve on this, you could cover more of the health plan cost or offer a better employer match for your 401(k) plan. According to a survey by Monster, health plans (32 percent), vacation time (25 percent) and pay raises (15 percent) were the three most important benefits that employees wanted.
There are some legal and tax ramifications to providing benefits to your employees, so it’s wise to hire a third-party administrator or consultant. A good TPA will help you get everything set up correctly so you can avoid expensive headaches later on.
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