This guide on hiring for your small business or startup will help you understand and learn the whole process of hiring anyone. Hiring qualified candidates for a vacant role can be tiresome and tricky, especially when you lack any previous knowledge of HR. This is the most common case for small businessmen or entrepreneurs who are just starting out on their journey. Hiring an employee with the right skill-set and who is fit to work in your company is a necessity. But as a small businessman, it is not an easy feat to achieve. But do not worry. In this article, you will be given an overview of the entire hiring process. We will discuss the steps to hiring the right candidate and how to assimilate him or her into the company.
Conduct market research
The first and foremost thing that you should do before starting to hire is to conduct extensive research on your local market. Get thorough information about similar jobs that other companies are offering. Understand what they are offering, what skills they are wanting from the candidates, and what positions are they looking to fill. This will allow you to get a good grasp of the trends in similar job offers and come up with an offer that will draw candidates to your job posting.
For this, you will be needed to make an offer that differentiates you from other similar offers. Try to make an offer that catches the attention of the prospective candidates at the first glance and the offer that they can’t resist. Your company may not be the most popular one but with an increased number of perks and some more employee benefits, you will be able to attract the most qualified candidates for your role.
Evaluate the positions you need to fill
Carefully chalk out the exact role that you need to fill at the moment. There may be more than one vacancy in your company. But you need to focus on one role at a time. You can’t hire a candidate and expect him or her to give you the best of both worlds. No matter how much skilled and qualified the candidate may be, you can’t expect a single candidate to fill two roles. Therefore, it is necessary to define each role and hire for them separately.
Before you start the hiring process, it is important that you know what to expect from the candidates. For that, you have to understand what tasks a candidate can accomplish from a particular position. You need to have a clear, well-defined set of responsibilities for your new employee. This will allow you to better advertise your vacancy and reach out to those candidates who can fulfil those responsibilities. After all, you would not want to attract candidates from diverse fields with different skill-sets and make the already tough process of hiring even tougher.
The hiring process
Write a job description
After you have figured out the positions that you need to fill, it is time to write a description of that positions in order to let potential candidates know what you want from them. It is always a good idea to inform your team about the hiring process and get their insight into what type of candidate would suit the role. Discuss with them the skills that are required and the responsibilities that the new employee would need to fulfil.
Once you are done discussing the demands of the position with your team, draft a job description. Write down the qualifications, the skills required, the day-to-day responsibilities of the role and the expectations. Also, describe your company and what it stands for. Write about your company culture to attract candidates with the right cultural fit. It is also a good idea to figure out a salary and perks and state them in the job description. This will remove any confusion from the candidates’ sides and only interested personnel would apply for the job.
Post your job opening
Now that you have carefully crafted out a great job offer and have described it appropriately, it is finally the time to post your job opening. It is always a good idea to post your job opening on your company website as this will draw candidates that are genuinely interested to work in your company. But in the case of small businesses, it is difficult to reach out to a large audience through the company website. For increasing your reach and spreading the word about your job opening to a large number of candidates, you can take the help of online career classifieds. Below is a list of job posting sites that you can consider for advertising your vacancy:
· CareerBuilder
· Monster
· ZipRecruiter
Shortlist the suitable candidates
Once you post your job opening, you will receive applications from a large number of candidates. It will not be possible to speak to every single one of them or interview all of them. Hence, it is necessary to shortlist the applications that are best suited for the job. The applications can be shortlisted on the following basis:
· Qualifications and experience- Check if the applicant has the required qualification and experience that had been posted in the job opening. If not, do not consider it as the candidate does not meet the prerequisites for the job.
· Resume- If the application states that the applicant has the required qualification and experience, go through the resume carefully. The resume will convey a lot about the personality and interests of the applicant. It will be of utmost importance while deciding whether you want to interview the applicant or not.
· Additional skills- If you like the resume of the candidate, search for some additional skills related to the job. It is not necessary for the candidate to have any such skills but any additional skill is always more than welcome
Informing the candidates about an interview
Once you have shortlisted suitable candidates, it is time to interview them. Send an e-mail or call them up to know that they have been selected for the interview round. It is advisable to inform the candidate about the interview with enough time for preparation. Inform them about the interview process and about the type of question that they will be asked. It will help them prepare well and based on the preparations, you can judge the sincerity of each candidate towards their work. You can also go an extra step and give them some homework before the interview. This will let you know about their grasp on their technical skills and also reveal their time-management skills.
Interviewing the candidate is the most crucial part of the hiring process. An interview allows you to meet and talk to the candidate in person. You get first-hand knowledge about the candidate’s character and personality through an interview.
Things to look for in the candidate
Out of all the applicants that you had shortlisted, you are just required to select one or a few based on your openings. It will be a tough process as the shortlisted candidates already have the prerequisites and possess the required skills. Hence, in an interview, it is important to look for things in the candidate beyond their technical prowess. You should be searching for the following traits while interviewing a candidate:
· Communication skills- Check if the interviewee is good at communicating with others. An ideal employee must be fluent in communication as he or she will be required to communicate with fellow employees or even clients (based on the role) every single day. Hence, good communication skills are a must.
· Interpersonal skills- It is important to check if the interviewee is comfortable working with others. Also, check how he or she behaves and talks with his or her colleagues. This is very important as good interpersonal skills will result in a healthy and friendly working atmosphere.
· Integrity- Is the interviewee honest with others or not? Is he/she sincere and dedicated towards his/her work or not? The answers to these questions will be crucial in deciding whether the candidate will be a good choice or not because honesty, sincerity and dedication are non-negotiable traits. These traits reflect the professionalism of an individual.
· Uniqueness- The employee that you are going to hire must be able to think differently. He or she must bring something unique to the table. You would want your company to be filled with individuals with diverse thinking as diversity presents different perspectives to the same scenario. The more diverse a workplace, the more solutions are to be discovered.
Hire the best candidate for the role
After the interview process is over, it is time to hire the right personnel. But do not hire the one who you think is best from the pool of applicants whom you interviewed. Hire the one who is most suitable for the job. This means that if out of all the interviewees, no one seems suitable for the role, do not just select the best candidate from the lot. Instead, start the hiring process all over again. This will be time-consuming but will definitely be worth it. You would not want to hire someone hastily just because you want to fill the spot and later regret it. Therefore, it is always a better idea to continue the hiring process until you find the right candidate who you think is best suited for the position.
Conduct background check
After selecting the best candidate from the interview, conduct a background check to remove any remaining doubts and ensure that the candidate is okay to work with. The background check is crucial to verify the information provided by the candidate, and check legal issues and any criminal records. The steps to conducting a background check are:
· Have a company policy- You should have a well-reviewed company policy for conducting background checks. Also, notify the candidates beforehand that the company conducts background checks for employees. This will serve as a fair warning and will keep false applications away from you.
· Get legal advice- Talk to a lawyer and gather information about how much you can check about a candidate. There is certain information that is not allowed to be unearthed. Hence, it is important to seek legal advice to make sure that your company stays out of trouble.
· Clear up misunderstandings- Not every piece of information that you gather through background checks is correct. Therefore, talk to the candidates and provide them with a chance to clear up mistakes and misunderstandings. This will save a candidate from being excluded incorrectly.
· Hire a background check company- You do not need to conduct background checks yourself. It is a timely process and requires attention to every detail. Therefore, it is advisable to hire a background check company. There are plenty of background check companies out there that effectively check the backgrounds of employees.
Registration and insurance of employee
This step comes after you have successfully selected the ideal candidate and have conducted a background check on him/her. Registration of the employee is mandatory by the law. You need to register your new employee while providing complete details about the employment. This is necessary to keep the company out of any trouble. Also, you must provide insurance to your employees. Insurance for employees is a fast-growing demand for many working professionals. The benefits of insurance for your employees are:
· It shows that you value their well-being. By providing insurance to your employees, you will be able to create more trust between you and your employees. Your employees will be thankful to you and will do their job more sincerely.
· It provides you with a competitive benefits package. As mentioned earlier, different companies provide different perks to their employees in order to attract the best candidates. Therefore, including a strong insurance policy in the package that you provide will give you an upper hand among other employers and you will be able to draw the interest of highly-skilled potential employees.
· Lastly, it protects your employees from health and financial problems. Issues related to health and finance can prove to be costly not only for the employee but also for the company. This is because an employee going through such problems will not be able to perform optimally. This will hinder his/her potential and reduce the productivity of the company. Therefore, providing protection to the employees in the form of insurance is a necessity.
Employment Agreement
It is mandatory for you as an employer to prepare a well laid-out employment agreement and get it signed by your new hire. An employment agreement is a signed agreement between the employer and an employee that establishes the rights and responsibilities of both of them. It clearly states the terms and obligations of the employment. It includes:
· Salary or wages
· Schedule
· Duration of employment
· General responsibilities
· Benefits
The above points are covered in every employment agreement. Apart from these, an employment agreement may include:
· Confidentiality
· Communications
· Future competition
Leaving Terms
Your employment agreement may also state in detail, the leaving terms for the employment. This includes the number of paid leaves that are allowed, the number of non-paid leaves, holidays, sick leaves and the duration for which the employment will continue. Some employments exist for a fixed duration while some continue for an ongoing period. This must be properly mentioned under the leaving terms to clear up any confusion.
Conclusion
Hiring an employee is a complicated and long process. It takes a lot of effort to advertise your job opening, shortlist applicants, hire the best of them all and complete the post-hiring and legal processes. This article provided a complete overview of the entire hiring process. It covered the steps to be followed before posting the job vacancy, during the hiring process and after the hiring process. I hope this article was helpful and helped you to understand the hiring process from an employer’s perspective.
