Five Tips to Hire the Best Employees for the Job

Listen in! Pick up some expert advice to a reader's question that we selected from CyberSchmooz.

As a business owner, hiring the right person for the job is harder than it sounds. While someone may have the credentials, they may not fit into the business culture. They could lie about their experience or have been in some trouble in the past. There are a lot of factors that come into play, which make it difficult to find the perfect person. Still there are a variety of ways that you can narrow it down and find the perfect employees to create a great team.

Spend some Time with Them

If you’re a small business owner and will be spending a lot of time with your employees, you should get to know them before hiring. You’ll know pretty quickly if you like the person and if they will fit in with you and the other employees. Not only will getting to know the person give you a window into how they will behave and relate to others, you’ll get a good idea of how they will assimilate. If you don’t spend the time getting to know the person, you may run into some bad eggs.

Conduct a Background Check

Another thing you can do to get a handle on who the person is and what they’re like is to conduct a background check. When you have someone come up with a criminal past, you will see the importance of background screening and background checks. This is also a good way to find out if you’re dealing with someone who has lied to you. Even if you think that the person is being honest and has nothing to hide, a background check is always a good idea. You may find out some surprising details about the people you are looking to hire.

Contact Prior Employers

It is a good idea to do the work of contacting the person’s past employers. While many managers skip over this step or merely ask if they did indeed work at a particular place, come prepared with questions that will reveal some things about the person and their work ethic. You may find out interesting details about their character. How did they leave these jobs? How long did they work there? A lot of revealing things can come out if you do your due diligence and do a little digging into the person’s past.

Ensure they Can Do More than One Thing

When you own a small business, there are a lot of overhead concerns and financial constraints. It is better to have a small team that is diversely skilled and able to work on more than one thing at once. Not only will this be cheaper for your bottom line, you’ll be able to pay employees more for doing more than one particular task. That way, they will grow with the business. They will feel a sense of camaraderie and connection to the company. This is how you create loyal employees who won’t turn around and leave suddenly or betray your trust. A tight knit group that has skilled and passionate people will provide better returns than a large staff.

Understand their Personal Life

Finally, you should think about the employee’s personal life. Do they have kids? Are they married? Will they relocate? What are their goals and dreams? When you understand these personal details of a person’s life, you will have a better grasp on what they will do in the future. Does it fit into your business? Are they looking to grow with the company? Ask a few non-invasive personal questions and you will benefit a lot from it.

While these tips aren’t fool-proof, they are very helpful when it comes to hiring trustworthy, hard-working, and dynamic employees. To cultivate a good staff, you want quality over quantity. You want people who will grow with you. You want people you can trust. You want people you like. Without one of these details, it may be off and you may never get the quality of work that you need. Do the hard work and pay attention to their character. When you do, you won’t regret it. You’ll be able to create a great staff.

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