Factors to Consider when Recruiting Employees By Natalie November 7, 2018 Uncategorized No Comments 47 Recruiting employees for your small business can be a stressful and overwhelming process. There are just so many things to consider before hiring staff that it’s best to break it down into three major parts: what you want, what the job role is exactly and what criteria a candidate needs to deliver the results you want. Otherwise you risk not hiring the right person for the job, a mistake which could waste your time, resources and money. So, What Do You Want? Why are you hiring employees / What problem do you need solved? The best way to hire new employees is to first identify why you’re recruiting. The fact that you’re employing staff in the first place suggests you are lacking something within your business that you need. What specific problem do you want recruiting new employees to solve? E.g. do you need a new employee to replace an existing one? Are you expanding your business and need a new employee to do that? Are you venturing into new areas? Do you need someone to improve a department or perhaps drive profits for a specific product? To ensure you are hiring the right person for the job, you need to perfectly understand your reasons for recruiting employees in the first place, as this will help you identify what you’re looking for in a candidate. What do you want from your new employee? So you know you’re hiring employees because you want someone to handle a specific problem or achieve a certain goal, i.e. drive sales for a particular product. Now you need to situate their role in relation to solving this problem. Will they lead or organise an individual project or projects? What exactly do you want them to contribute? Should they suggest new ideas? Or innovate? Considering your business goals in direct relation to the employees you’re looking to hire will make hiring the right person for the job much easier. What Job Role Are You Offering? What will the job role entail on a daily basis? You know why you’re hiring employees and what you want from them, now you need to outline the day to day components of the roles on offer. Will your new employees have set tasks or will they be independent? Will they work autonomously or as part of a team? Setting clear outlines of the roles that you’re hiring for is an essential, but often overlooked, part of employee recruitment strategies for both you and your candidates. It helps ensure an open line of communication and equal understanding from both parties. If the roles are unclear, you could easily hire someone who is the wrong fit or thought the job would be something different. Will the job role be a learning role? Identifying whether the new role will entail training is not only an important part of the employee onboarding process, but narrows down your pool of candidates. Once you know which level of candidate you can accommodate or that you require, recruiting employees becomes a much easier task as you can better filter the applications before the interview process. How much salary is the right candidate worth? Salary and budget are determinate factors within a lot of small business hiring. Once you have a well-rounded and fleshed out idea of why you’re recruiting employees, your needs and the roles you’re offering, you should consider whether the salary you can offer for a specific role is negotiable for the ideal candidate, rather than decide on a fixed figure before commencing interviews. This will ground your search for employees and ensure you’re realistic from the outset, while also allowing you a little flexibility. What Should You Look For in Your Candidates? Qualifications A pretty obvious recruitment criterium, when hiring employees you need to identify whether the candidates have the qualifications not only necessary for the roles on offer, but also the qualifications that will help them thrive within your company. Work experience Previous work experience is often where most candidates, especially graduates, can fall short. This is why it’s so important when you’re hiring employees to identify whether the roles on offer will include training. If you decide against accommodating for training time, you may miss out on a candidate with a lot of potential. Equally, if you want an employee with a lot of experience you may have to rethink the salary you originally proposed. Career history This is different from work experience. For personal and career history you should ask questions like: how long were they in their previous job? Why did they leave? Have they always worked in your sector? Asking these kinds of questions helps you better understand the person you’re interviewing and gauge whether they’re in it for the long haul. For ideas on how to subtly ask these kinds of questions, see our previous blog post: What Your Interviewers are Really Asking You. Career goals and ambitions The level of ambition you desire in a candidate will depend on the role. If you want someone innovative who will make a real impact on your business, then ambition is key. If you want someone to carry out menial tasks, then you may find an ambitious candidate would get bored easily in the role and leave. Personality You’ve got to work with whomever you hire and trust them to represent your business. When recruiting employees, you should always remember that the candidates you’re interviewing are real people who will need to fit in amongst your current staff . Treating them as normal human beings during the interview process will make it less awkward and encourage them to open up. Appearance and physical presentation When hiring employees, it’s important to consider the impression they will give to your customers. And how do you do this? You consider the impression they first gave you. Have they made an effort to look presentable? Are they clean and appropriately dressed? If they turn up to the interview scruffy, then imagine what they’ll do once they already have the job. Recruiting Employees is Never Easy Employing staff is not a secondary task you should rush through. Recruitment is another way in which you build and develop your business. Your employees are your business tools and if you don’t have the right tools then you won’t produce the right product. Try recruiting staff yourself by following this advice and using a hiring process checklist. Alternatively, if hiring employees will take up too much time for you, or if considering all these different factors of recruitment just seems like too much effort, then contact Qube. We are well-versed in these practices and, to be honest, a professional, outsource recruitment agency is often the best way to hire new employees. Next Post The Best Way to Get a Job with No Experience The Best Way to Get a Job with No Experience Have a question? Please get in touch and we will get back to you as soon as possible. Contact Us Contact Qube Tel: 0800 468 1400 Email: info@quberecruitment.co.uk Recent News Why Use a Recruitment Agency Factors to Consider when Recruiting Employees The Best Way to Get a Job with No Experience Firstname Email Address Subscribe © 2021 Qube Recruitment.