How to hire great people

Small businesses live and die by the people that work in them. Without great people, it's always harder to do great work. But for small businesses with limited recruiting budgets, finding the best person for the job can be tricky.

So, how do you ensure you're hiring the best people? 

Don't fall for personality

In a small business where you might not have dedicated HR people to manage your recruiting efforts, you'll likely be the one in charge of deciding who comes onboard. Don't be taken in by a strong personality, a wicked sense of humour or brash displays on confidence. Remember, candidates are selling themselves to you and putting on their best performance, so you need to look past the distractions and focus on the important things like their achievements, experience and endorsement from referees.

That said, you can't entirely discount personality attributes either – just make sure to weigh them appropriately when making your final decision.

Don't let a candidates personality alone sell you on them – remember what counts for getting the job done.

Have a solid screening process

Time is money – small business owners don't have the time to interview dozens of people for a role. If you often receive a large number of applications when advertising jobs, you want to be able to screen out the worthy candidates quickly and efficiently.

A process like this is important because it allows you to hire in a systematic way each time. Excessive inflexibility when hiring isn't helpful but neither is the reverse – build a process that you can trust to sort the wheat from the chaff, and you won't have to second guess the decisions you make later in the process. It's better to spend more time digging deep into the candidates with potential instead of wasting time on those without.

Know what you're looking for

Remember that the process of applying for jobs is stressful and confusing too – people put in applications for jobs they're not sure they can do or that they'd not really be interested in if they got. The clearer you can make your job description, and the required skills, the better able you'll be to focus on those traits that are most important when hiring. An ill-defined job description or haziness around what you actually need makes filing that position much more difficult.

For more information on how Wilson Porter can serve your business, get in touch with a member of the team today.