As a business owner, your time is valuable. For your business to grow, it must have the resources and the people necessary to serve current clients and potential clients. Since you can’t clone yourself, the best solution is hiring employees or partnering with a remote company, like Clients ARM, to help you meet your goals. Hiring the right people to help you is the most important skill in your business.
Hiring Isn’t an Easy Process
Realizing that you need to bring on employees or partner with a remote company is easy. You know you need to get more done. You know that you, alone, can’t do it all. Yet, finding the right solution isn’t easy. You certainly don’t want to trust the success of your business and your livelihood into the hands of just anyone.
For every job opening posted by a business, more than 100 people apply. Screening and interviewing the applicants takes time. Then, there’s the cost of keeping a talented and loyal employee. You must ensure that you pay a competitive wage, provide benefits, and create a work environment that makes your employees feel valued and challenged to grow.
To help you through the hiring process, we’ve put together this list of tips.
Understand Exactly What Your Business Needs
You’re not looking to just hire anyone. To hire the right people, you must know exactly what your business needs. Are you looking for someone who can handle the administrative tasks, such as an administrative assistant or office manager? Are you looking for someone who will be designated as your AP / AR person? Are you looking for a sales person or an account manager? You must take the necessary time to determine exactly what you’re looking for in a new employee.
Another important consideration is whether your business needs someone on a part-time or full-time basis. You want to make sure that your business goals are met, but you must also consider if you’re paying someone for a full-time job that only has part-time responsibilities.
Also, how much experience are you willing to pay for? Experienced employees won’t want entry-level wages. If you want great employees with substantial experience, you must be willing to pay for it. Even if you’re able to hire an experienced person for a salary that’s far below the market value for someone with their experience and skills, they won’t stay with your business. They’ll move on if they don’t think there’s a future with your business.
Find Someone with the Right Personality for the Job
By “right personality,” we are not saying that you should only hire one type of person. What we are saying is that you should understand the importance of hiring someone with the right personality for the job they will perform. For example, you wouldn’t want to hire someone as a receptionist or administrative assistant if they have a bad attitude and who acts like it’s a chore to answer the phone. They would likely be a contact person for your clients and potential clients. You’d want someone who, even if they aren’t extroverted, truly enjoys working with and helping others.
Use a Job Application and a Background Check
Don’t just hire someone based on ten minutes that you spend talking with them in person, over the phone, or online. Make sure that you use a job application and perform a background check. When it comes to job applications, you must choose one that doesn’t ask questions that the federal or the state government consider discriminatory in nature. You shouldn’t ask for a date of birth (except in certain industries where workers must be a certain age to obtain a specific type of license or certification). You shouldn’t ask about gender, parental status, sexuality, religion, or ethnicity. You should speak with a lawyer in your area if you plan to write your own job application.
Background checks are also important. The goal here isn’t necessarily to turn down someone with a past. You’re certainly welcome to hire anyone you’d like for your business. Second-chance employers are extremely important to our society. A background check helps you know about the potential risk to your business. If a job applicant disclosed a charge or conviction on their applicant, that’s great. You can discuss it openly (with certain legal limitations in some states; again, you should speak with a lawyer in your area to determine what is and isn’t legally allowed when interviewing potential employees with previous legal problems). If they don’t and the charge or conviction is fairly recent, you must carefully consider whether you’re willing to hire someone who may not always be open to discussing uncomfortable situations or addressing problems head-on.
Overwhelmed? Partner with Clients ARM
Hiring an employee isn’t easy. There’s paperwork, salary, benefits, and overhead that must be considered. You’ll need worker’s compensation insurance, too. If you need help, but don’t have the time or the budget to hire someone full-time, consider partnering with Clients ARM. By working from a remote location in the United States, we save our clients around 40% of the costs associated with hiring a full-time employee. You save on overhead, insurance, benefits, and more. To learn how we can help your business, schedule your free consultation.
