It is not an easy task to hire a new employee, it is one of the most important business decisions you’ll ever make because hiring the right employees will result in the business running smoothly. If you don’t spend time preparing and investing in the process don’t be surprised to find yourself back at where you started looking for another employee. Use this hire a new employee checklist to help you with the process.
Before you interview
- Check the prerequisites for hiring a candidate. Have an idea of your country’s hiring regulations, insurance policies, tax requirements, and its paperwork. You need to zero in on the wages and also be up-to-date with employee records.
- What are your hiring needs? Think about the opening position and decide what kind of work the position entails, how many hours of work, the skill set required, the level of expertise needed and so on.
- The perfect employee. Make a list of qualities you expect from your employee apart from education and experience. An honest, intelligent, hardworking candidate is any day better than a highly experienced candidate with personality flaws.
- Advertise in right places. Once you have the job description thought through and written down think about places where your ideal employee will look for their next job opportunity. If a person who reads the Wall Street Journal is what you have in mind then perhaps that’s where you need to advertise your opening.
- Broadcast the vacancy. Have an account with popular online job sites which offer brilliant platforms to advertise job openings. Nowadays social media websites too are a great place to look for candidates.
- Look internally. Before you look to externally fulfil the role, first look at your own payroll. There might be an eligible candidate who might be a better fit for this new position. Or a candidate referred by colleagues or your friends / contacts might come in handy.
- Shortlist the applications. This is where you need to match the skill set of the candidates with the position requirements. You won’t always find the perfect person whose skills will match the job description 100%, be prepared for that and see if instead you can grow that person to fit the role.
For the interview
- Check out the employment laws. It is a common sight these days to see lawsuits against companies for violating employment laws. Make sure you have legal counsel on hand and be aware of the law.
- Prepare a questionnaire. An interview questionnaire should have a right mix of personal and professional questions and should provide an insight of the candidate’s expertise, intelligence along with his character and personality.
- If you are hiring for a specific job try and carry out skill tests where applicable.
- Don’t dismiss referrals lightly as a genuine referral is tough to come by. Be careful about the opinions of others and judge the candidate for yourself. You can even look on social media sites to gain insight as to the type of person they might be.
- Draw up employment contract; a written document stating the terms of employment is very important. It saves you from legal headaches. Be well advised on the non-compete clause and probation period terms of any such contract.
- Pay. The correct employee wage is always directly proportional to the value of the employee. Remember the saying; pay peanuts, get monkeys!!
If you offer the candidate the job and they start. Great! Fingers crossed and don’t forget to use our new employee starter checklist to help with the on boarding process. 😉