When It’s Time to Hire Your First Employee
As your business expands the need to hire your first employee will arise, marking a significant milestone in your business growth. Here are tips to get you started.
Identifying when it’s time to hire your first employee
Recognizing when to bring in additional help is crucial. Here are some indicators:
- If you’re consistently struggling to meet deadlines and maintain quality, it’s time to hire.
- Increased revenues are good, but if it comes at the expense of your personal life or leisure, consider hiring help.
- Your business requires specific skills or expertise that you’re missing.
Defining your needs
Understand what role your new hire will fill and the required skills and qualifications needed to perform the job.
- Clearly define the must-have qualifications for the open position. If a skill can be measured, identify a range of competency rather than a fixed measurement.
- Consider the type of person best suited for the open position. Think about whether the role requires interaction with the public or the ability to take care of details.
- Determine a range for compensation, with the lower end corresponding to less experience, and the higher end to more more experience.
Recruiting top talent
Start by believing in yourself and in the great opportunity your business offers a candidate. Your positive attitude will inform your search and interaction with candidates.
- Spread the word to everyone you know. Put the opening on your website, post it on social media, add it to your email campaigns and use community resources.
- Explore whether a recruitment agency might work for you. It’s not inexpensive, but you will likely get a wider pool of candidates.
- For employers seeking to hire, it’s a candidate’s market, so think about how you can make a good impression.
Conducting interviews
This is one of the most important moments on your journey to hiring your first employee. The candidate may look perfect on paper, but you won’t know if he or she is a good fit until you meet.
- Plan the interview in advance. Make a list of questions and decide if you want to test competency in any area.
- Go deeper into the job description. Now is the time to discuss expectations, discuss a variety of scenarios, and highlight critical tasks.
- If the position requires decision-making, give the candidate an opportunity to make decisions about hypothetical situations during the interview.
Ensuring a smooth and efficient onboarding
Successfully integrating your new hire into your business is as significant as the hiring process.
- Provide a written onboarding process that lays out role expectations, introduces company culture, and identifies training needs.
- Provide email access, necessary tools, and other resources required to perform the job.
- Provide checklists for routine tasks and processes.
- Provide constant feedback to ensure issues are promptly addressed.
If you’re thinking about adding a person to your team — whether it’s your first new hire or your tenth — I can help at any stage of your journey. Connect today for a free consultation.
If you would like to learn more about how this might apply to your business, let’s talk: