If you’re dipping your toe into the waters of hiring one new person or even a team, it can be daunting for someone without experience doing it for the first time. But I promise you, it doesn’t have to be scary, with the right knowledge and support, you’re sure to nail it! Knowledge is power and that’s what I’m here to share with you.
First a little story, I had a client who had recently been promoted into a role where she was responsible for hiring. She was worried and scared about every step of the process, in the interviews she was more nervous than the candidates were. But each step of the way I gave her the information she needed to get through the process one action at a time. By the end, we hired someone great, she handled a salary negotiation on her own and that person is thriving in the role to this day. So trust me when I say, with a little knowledge and practice, there’s nothing to be scared of and we will get you through this!
Let’s do a knowledge drop! 10 Things you should know before hiring that will set you up for success!!
✨ Outline the Position Description - Get an understanding of the key duties of the role, what it will take to achieve the outcomes and anything critical a new employee needs to know about the expectations.
✨ Business Culture - If you haven’t already done a deep dive on understanding your company culture, now is the time to do it. This will help you to understand the behaviours you want in your business and help you to test it through the recruitment process.
✨ How much can you spend - If you don’t already know, you’ll need to figure out what you can pay for the salary, super and benefits for the role. You’ll need to understand market conditions as well as what you can afford. Then consider the potential recruitment costs including advertising or bringing on an awesome hiring partner (😉)
✨ Recruitment Strategy - a well-planned strategy will tell you where to advertise or market the role, which channels are most appropriate and how you will consider future applicants.
✨ Legal Considerations - make sure to think about relevant legislation like Equal Opportunity Employment before advertising - ensuring to use language which is non-discriminatory.
✨ Interviewing - Create a plan for interviewing, including the style of interview you’ll use, something that tests the skills, experience and values fit. Make sure it makes sense for the role you’re hiring for.
✨ Checks and References - Depending on your policies, you may want to request a Police Check, pre-employment medical or other aptitude checks. If you don’t require that, don’t go further until you complete references from previous or current supervisors.
✨ Onboarding - Once you have found your new hire, or actually before then, you should organise a plan for how you will induct and bring your new hire into the business so they can be set up for the best chance for success.
✨ Communication & Probation - You’ll likely have a 3 or 6 month probation with your new hire, make sure to take that time to catch up with them regularly, capture any challenges early and ensure there are no surprises when it comes to final probation conversations. In addition, communicate effectively to candidates not selected to inform them of the outcome.
✨ Review - after the process is completed, take the time to review what has transpired during the course of the recruitment, make notes for the future for improvements, what you did well, what didn’t go so well and use that all to make great decisions in the future.
Broken down into bite-sized steps means you can nail each one with ease and a little practice. Some of these steps may feel more scary than others. It may be overwhelming to think about giving someone a salary of say $80,000 plus super, but remember this isn’t right up front and you wouldn’t be in the position to recruit this role if that money didn’t mean you would be able to earn more or be more effective as a company without hiring for this position.
When in doubt, that’s where a good hiring partner comes in very handy. A hiring partner can walk you through each steps as you go through them, holding your proverbial hand all the way.Â
Ash ✨