Hiring the right people for your organization

This article covers for both organization hiring for the first time and businesses that have being there already.

As a start-up:

Probably for a period of time, you’ve operated your new business as lean and mean as possible and continue to wear every hat yourself. Finally, you’ve hit a point–or your breaking point–where, in order to remain competitive and prosper, you’ll need to welcome a helping hand aboard your tight ship.

Before you hire a new employee as a starter or existing business

• Ask yourself—do you need an employee? – 
  • Sometime what you need is a temporary and not permanent help. A specific project might require just a temporary worker, but ongoing help will need someone more permanent.  
  • You should understand that a full-time employee is an ongoing cost for your business.
  • Think carefully about whether you need an employee or a contractor.
• Ask yourself – Are you ready to hire someone? –for instance
  • Have you defined the role the new person will play in your business?
  • Have you done a cost benefit analysis?
  • Can you afford the ongoing cost of a staff (hire) – Note that it will cost you more than salary to maintain a staff.
  • Have you established your company’s values and ready to incorporate people with good understanding of your values. Do you also plan to hire according to these values?

IMPORTANT! : Hiring someone isn’t enough—you need to make sure they’re the right person for the job and your business.

Once you’ve decide to hire a new person into your business, you must understand;

• That you’re now in charge of someone else’s livelihood! (to some extent)
• It’s a strong signal that your company has real merit because someone has chosen to turn down other opportunities to help make your idea happen.
• Also in many cases, he or she is embracing a significant amount of risk in choosing to work with you.

Why you must take the best hiring decision

Hiring the wrong person (mismatches) can result in

• Low income,
• Absenteeism,  unfounded excuses,  health issues etc
• Workplace violence
• Theft–
• Negative impact on the organization reputation due to ill-mannered employees.

How to make informed decisions while hiring

You must ensure you stay within legal and ethical boundaries of hiring people. Check to find out this from your country of state.

1. Do not totally trust your instincts –
   1. In reality, nearly 40 percent of all job applications and resumes include bogus or inflated facts
   2. You should realize that criminal, under-qualified, and emotionally unstable minds hide in all uniforms and job titles.
2. Hire for potential, not (just) Track Record –
   1. One of the quality of a good manager is the ability to see potential, not just evidence of past success.
   2. To Unlock potential  you must be able to marry the person’s skills and passions
   3. Look for someone who has a strong interest or passion for causes or missions that are similar to yours, and, separately, evidence that the person is really good at what he or she has done before (even if that’s a variety of different things).
   4. You can even turn down applicants with Master’s degrees and 10 years of experience because you find another with strong interest or passion for the assignment.
3. Let applicants demonstrate skill or aptitude
   1. Many people know exactly how to answer interview questions in a way that instills confidence in a hiring manager.
   2. the best way to vet someone is to have him or her complete a task for you—for example, if you’re hiring a salesperson, ask them to sell you something, or a secretary that needs to use the computer – ask them to do something on the computer
4. Interview at least three candidates for the job.
   1. This practice forces you to slow down and compare and contrast the qualities and characteristics of different people.
5. Interview the candidate that you like three different times.
   1. Remember, a job candidate will look the very best on the first interview. After that, there is a gradual deterioration as the screens fall away and the true person is revealed.
6. Have any candidate that impresses you interviewed by at least three of your team member
   1. If your organization has a team let other people on your team do it . In too many cases, a candidate that you considered to be ideal may be roundly rejected by other team members and this may turn out for good for your organization.
7. Check at least three reference from the applicant – (past job if any)
   1. Ask them “We are interviewing this person for this particular job, doing these particular activities, and having these particular responsibilities.” You can then ask specific questions such as:
      —could you tell me some of the strengths or weaknesses that this candidate would have in performing a job like this?
      —Is there anything you could tell me that would help me to make a better hiring decision?
      —Would you hire this person back again if he applied to you for a job?
   2. You can also get information from the applicant’s colleagues at work

Summary!

Hire as much for attitude, personality, and character as you do for job skills. Make sure that the new person will fit in comfortably with your company culture and work well with yourself and others.

The more effort you put in at the start, the more time, money, and problems you’ll save later on when you don’t have to fire anyone.