Hiring new talent is an inevitable part of every business. However, hiring the right person for your business can be overwhelming and complicated. Think about it: You have to try to find people who will become invested in the success of your business, take ownership of their roles, and elevate you to new heights. That’s no small task! So, let’s talk about it. Below, I share some of my favorite tips for hiring and growing your team.

7 Tips for Hiring Stellar Team Members

While hiring can require a little trial and error for even the most seasoned entrepreneur, these tips for hiring should help you along the way.

1. Write a Detailed Job Description

A job description is an applicant’s first interaction with your organization. A poorly written job description risks attracting the wrong people. Ensure you write a concise and well-defined job posting that reflects your brand and attracts your ideal candidates.  

A good job description includes what you’re searching for in a candidate and what the company has to offer. The following are some core elements that can take your job description from good to great:

• Describe what your company does, what inspires it, and what its mission is.
• Name the job title and describe a day in the life of that employee.
• Briefly explain who the employee will be working with.
• List important job skills and qualifications.
• Include any applicable benefits, like PTO, health insurance, and maternity/paternity leave.

Writing a clear job description is both an art and a science. Make sure you use clear, inspiring, and relevant language that helps potential employees understand the role and motivates them to apply.

2. Give a Salary Range Upfront

I know this one is debated, but hear me out, because it’s one of the better tips for hiring I can offer you.

Providing a salary range for job openings is essential for your company to remain competitive and attract high-value employees. If you don’t give a range of pay, potential applicants may assume that you offer a lower salary, and they might not bother applying. Job applicants feel more confident when applying for positions when they know their skills and experience are valued and compensated accordingly.

In addition, letting candidates know the salary range early filters out those who will decline the job based on pay alone. It can be disappointing to spend weeks or months interviewing the right candidate only for them to decline the job when you give them an offer at the end of the recruitment.

Speaking of which…

3. Create a Good Recruitment Strategy

“Recruitment strategy?! Don’t I just post the job opening and then… start interviewing people?” Well, yes, but there’s a lot more to it than that. Things of things like:

• Where you’ll post the job opening (LinkedIn, Indeed, your website, etc.).
• How you’ll assess the applicants.
• How you’ll conduct interviews — in person, online? If online, how?
• How many rounds of interviews you’ll have.
• The types of questions you’ll ask.
• The overall timeline of your entire strategy.

When you consider your overall strategy more closely, you accomplish a couple of things. You save yourself a lot of time by zeroing in on the right candidates faster. Additionally, you increase the likelihood of selecting the ideal candidate.

4. Have a Video or an In-Person Conversation

In-person conversations are one of the most crucial steps in the hiring process. However, I know that in the age of work-from-home, you might never meet your employees face-to-face. That’s okay! You can also conduct this conversation remotely through video calls.

This type of conversation should be done after narrowing down your pool of job applicants, perhaps after you give them a short test assignment. (More on that in a moment.)

Having an in-person or video interview offers a number of benefits:

• You can capture both verbal and non-verbal cues to help you determine the applicant’s personality.
• You get the flexibility to probe and evaluate deeper with each answer you get.
• You learn more on the spot, as opposed to exchanging several emails back and forth.
• The in-person conversations give you a sense of who the person is and their soft skills.

5. Give Candidates a Short Assignment

You shouldn’t assume a candidate is suitable for the position based on their resume only. Even if they submit samples of previous work, you don’t know what that work originally looked like. Therefore, it’s important to test your job candidates to ensure they meet your standards. 

Tests offer evidence that the applicants can perform the skills mentioned in their resume and are fit for the role. For instance, if an applicant mentions in their resume that they can build a website, you can give them a short programming assessment to gauge their skills.

Speaking of short, aim to keep these tests concise and to the point. It shouldn’t take up a ton of the applicants’ time.

6. Check the Compatibility

Understanding your employee’s personality and whether it aligns with your company’s culture is essential for the growth of your business. You don’t want to hire someone who doesn’t fit your company’s culture and regret it later. 

Have some sort of personality test that gauges their social skills and if they will get along well with your current employees. For instance, if your office is louder and requires more group work, you won’t want to hire someone who prefers working quietly and independently. Employing someone who isn’t a good fit for your business will not only make them unhappy and lead to a bad working experience but also disturb the work environment.

7. Conduct a Background Check

You should think of running a background check before hiring a new employee to ensure there are no red flags. Is the information on their resume truthful? What do their references have to say about them? Have they ever run into any trouble with the law? This is the kind of insight you might gather. This part of the process might also include employment screening and drug testing.

Your business is only as good as your employees. Having the right team to back you up will make all the difference in the world. Follow these tips for hiring and it’ll be easier to find the right team members for your company.