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4 Simple Steps To Hiring Better So You Can Manage Less!

Written by: Rikka Brandon
Published on: Dec 18, 2017
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4 Simple Steps To Hiring Better So You Can Manage Less!

According to the Harvard Business Review, 80% of employee turnover is due to hiring mistakes.  Ouch!  That means 4 out of 5 bad hires could have been avoided before you wasted all that time and energy!

So, the point of this blog post is to help you hire better (so you can avoid those hires that are going to suck your time, energy, and money.)

So, without further ado….

1. Know Yourself. Are you a great manager? Or are you more wired to be an individual contributor?

The good news is even if you hate managing people (like I do) you can build a great team.  You just need to come at it a bit differently than someone is willing to spend more time developing processes and employees.

If you do happen to be a natural manager and enjoy and excel at setting expectations and holding people accountable you can often spend less money on payroll by investing more time and energy into training someone with the right attitude to do the necessary tasks.

If you are more of an individual contributor by nature and have no interest in “hand-holding” your employees and want them to hit the ground running without a lot of clear systems and processes established you will be better off to pay more and get someone who is experienced in a similar role and can build the processes for you following your guidelines.  This can be someone like an online business manager, a higher level VA, or an experienced employee.

To build an amazing team you need to understand your strengths and weaknesses.  In my pre-entrepreneurial life I was a Department Manager and an HR Manager, I was good enough at it to get promoted rapidly. However, when I started my own company I painfully learned that I don't want to spend my days managing people to do work I can do better myself.

So after realizing I was 29 years old with a million dollar company and I hated my job – I realized I needed to build a team that would let me do what I loved and support my weaknesses. Just a few years later I was able to move to Puerto Aventuras, Mexico with my husband and two young children. You can read all about my family sabbatical if you are curious!
 

2. Get Clear. You need to understand why this hire will move your business forward.

If you can't articulate the business result you expect to see and what actions the new hire will need to do to meet those expectations  you shouldn't hire just yet.

I get it, this is boring. You are too busy to spend time spending time getting clear about what you need (after all you have kind of a clear idea in your mind – so it will all work out…)

You have a choice. You can choose to spend a couple hours getting clear about what you need + what you can afford to move your business forward OR you can continue to hire with a vague idea in your mind and spend dozens of hours training, coaching, and managing an employee who isn't meeting your expectations.

This is one of the most common mistakes entrepreneurs make. Luckily, it is one of the easiest to correct. Simply slow down + get clear before you start paying someone. You can learn more about how to write a great job description here. If you consistently feel disappointed or frustrated with your hires – this simple change will yield big results.
 

3. Get the word out! It is hard to hire amazing people if you only have 3 mediocre applicants.

Time and time again the lack of qualified candidates is listed as the number one hiring challenge.  In some cases, it is a legitimate challenge, but in many cases, it is simply a matter of not know what to do and where to do it to attract the right applicants.  So, here are a few quick things you can do immediately to get more qualified applicants.

Use your job description to create a great job ad (don't you dare use your boring job description as your job ad and complain about a lack of qualified applicants!) Then use multiple channels to get the word out about your opportunity.  

Don't break the bank, use a mix of free and paid resources – but use at least 3 channels to drive traffic.  This is where a lot of entrepreneurs decide it'd just be easier to hire their brother/sister/neighbor/friend…. sometimes it works out amazingly – sometimes it doesn't.  Be sure you've asked yourself these three questions before hiring a friend or family member.
 

4. Choose carefully. Hiring an employee is the professional equivalent of getting married. Take your time and get it right.

Hopefully, you successfully got the word out and have some qualified applicants to choose from.  Check this out if you don't have enough qualified applicants.

Once you have a decent pool of people to choose from, take your time to get it right. Doing one interview and extending an offer is the equivalent of proposing after a first date – it's just too early to be sure. I outlined a quick, copy-and-paste interview process for you to make sure you are making the best possible choice.

One of the greatest challenges we as humans face when we are interviewing is our desire to be right.  So, we often make fairly snap decisions about people in the first few minutes of an interview and then spend the rest of the interview proving ourselves right. This is the most “dangerous” when we fall in love with the candidate.  

Once you catch yourself falling in love with a candidate start trying to prove yourself wrong. Look for reasons they won't work or challenges or issues they may have in the role. I go into this a bit more in a blog post in case you want to dig a bit deeper into how to use contrary evidence to avoid hiring mistakes.

Obviously, hiring is a very complex issue with lots of nuances and challenges that are particular to your organization, opportunity, and market – but these are 4 simple things anyone can do to start hiring better. If you really want to dig in and build an amazing team you will want to check out my new training and mentorship community Hire Power.

 

 

Rikka Brandon is the author of the best-selling book Hire Power: Everything Entrepreneurs Need To Know To Hire Awesome People. She’s the creator of the Hire Power Program, an online program designed to help small businesses build a rock-solid recruiting strategy and stop settling when they hire. She’s the Founder of RikkaBrandon.com and  Building Gurus. Rikka is the go-to girl for growth-minded entrepreneurs and forward-thinking business leaders and is considered as the USA’s Top Hiring Expert for Small Businesses.