HOW DO I FIND AN EMPLOYEE THAT FITS?

Has your Westchester County NY business has grown and you realize you must hire your first employee? You might be tempted to reach out to someone you know. Hiring someone because of friendship ignores the purpose for hiring someone in the first place—the fact that you need someone with specific qualifications to do a job.

Many businesses find that selecting and hiring of the right employee is a daunting task. Some people just hire anyone who applies or, at best, they may ask a few quick questions before making an offer. Hiring the wrong person can be costly but hiring high performing employees will result in helping your organization meet its goals and will promote your brand to your customers.

Before accepting an application or advertising you should have a clear description of duties for the prospective new hire. Know exactly what you need. What are the duties required? What behaviors are required such as ability to work well with others? What are the physical requirements such as lifting or working in the outdoors, or traveling? What is the desired experience level? And what reasoning ability is required?

Now that you have spelled out what you require, you should also spell out why a person would want to work for your company. List all of the benefits and opportunities that you offer. You may think that you are a small business and don’t have much to offer. Consider these things: flexible schedules, broader job responsibilities, a family feel, an entrepreneurial culture or the chance to learn new skills as the company grows. Obviously, structuring a competitive compensation package is critical.

Prior to interviewing develop a strategy for interviewing candidates. Write down some questions. Use open ended questions that get the candidate to talk and become more relaxed with you. You want to try to understand how the candidate will behave as an employee. The best way to predict that is to find out how he or she handled situations in the past. We do this by asking “behavior based” questions. These “behavior based questions” will help you predict how a candidate will act as your employee. For example, if you want to learn about how well he or she would work with others you might ask this question. “Tell me about a time when you were asked to work with a group of people on a project. How did you contribute to the end result? How did the group work as a team?” Your candidate will need to think and give a descriptive answer about his or her ability to contribute to a team.

Assessment tools are excellent and I highly recommend them. Assessment tools such as “DISC” and “Values” are used in the selection process to learn about a candidate’s behavioral style and motivational style.

Here is the bottom line. Your business is really about you and your employees. Hire right and hire smart.   Select the best and then engage them and motivate them to do their best.

Would you like to learn how to select and retain the staff this is right for your business?

Contact Us for a Free Consultation

or call 914-953-4458.