Success-Driven Hiring Tips to Keep in Mind When Building Your Business
Running a business is hard work—With so many pieces constantly in motion and responsibilities piling up, one after the other, it’s easy to find yourself in a productivity rut that leaves you feeling more defeated than determined. Did you know that an astounding 90% of startups fail due to self-destruction rather than market competition? If you don’t make the right moves early on, you could become another statistic.
Growing your team is an essential piece to the never-ending puzzle that is the startup universe. Surrounding yourself with people who are equally passionate about pursuing your vision is an absolute must should success be your end goal—but how do you get there?
The reality of any hiring process is that you never know what you’re going to get. While an employee may look like the perfect example of your ideal candidate, they may have an employment history littered with no shows or a skill set completely different from their resume. With these success-driven hiring tips, we’ll help you understand what to look for and how to nail your hiring process.
Perfect your job listing
Your very first foray into the job market is marked by the listing you post on job boards. Because potential candidates will rely so heavily on the details inside of your job listing to determine their interest, it’s well worth your while to dedicate time to creating an accurate and alluring job listing. Ultimately, if you expect prospective talent to take you seriously in person, they must first understand your mission, purpose, and search intent online.
Finding the right people for specialized roles often requires more than just a standard job board post. Many businesses in technical fields like AV and custom integration find that general recruitment methods do not always reach the best candidates. Working with a dedicated partner like Amplify People helps bridge this gap. By focusing on culture and specific industry skills, this approach ensures that new hires are ready to contribute to the team immediately. It is often more efficient than using broad agencies that do not know your niche.
Drafting up the job description will take a few tries, but an effective one will show the fruits of your labor faster than one you whip up in a mad dash.
An effective job description will have these components:
- Company info (website, address, phone number, email)
- Overview of the role
- Detailed job responsibilities
- Preferred job qualifications
- Employee benefits
- Instructions on how to apply
- Equal opportunity employer statement
Fine-tune your interview procedures
Hammering out your interview process should go above and beyond the bare minimum if you’re looking to build a star-studded team. Rather than sticking to basic, commonly asked questions like:
- “What are your biggest strengths?”
- “What interests you about this position?”
- And “Why should we hire you?”
If you want to make better use of your time and your interviewee’s time, come to the interview with more thought-provoking questions that dig deeper into the candidate’s work ethic, background, and story. By being a bit more specific in your questioning, you can get the nitty-gritty information you need to determine whether or not the candidate is a good fit.
Try out these awesome interview questions:
- “How would you describe yourself in 5 words or less?”
- “How will you contribute to this team?”
- “Are you a competitive person?”
- “Can you describe a situation where you have gone above and beyond?”
Conduct background checks
Even after asking all of the right questions and trusting your gut about a promising candidate, be sure to always conduct a background check employment history to get an even more thorough look at the person behind the resume.
Employment verification checks can unveil a variety of facts about applicants you wouldn’t otherwise know including:
- Title verification
- Credentials and licensure verification
- Employment history verification
Implement referral incentives
If you already have a few good employees, odds are pretty likely that they know a fair share of qualified professionals from previous jobs or networking events. Why not pick from their pools of potential candidates by encouraging them to refer applicants. Or encourage them to scout out the best of the best with some referral incentives?
Whether you choose to buy gift cards online, offer them a referral bonus, or award some extra time off to inspire them to find candidates who are right for the job, you’ll be surprised to see the types of talent that come through your doors.
Be choosy but not close-minded
The entire point of your hiring process is to find someone who fits both the job duties and the company culture—but be careful of tying yourself too tightly to an applicant checklist that turns your entire pool away. Keep an open mind, trust your gut, and heed the advice of other colleagues to effectively build your team.
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