Hiring employees is essential for any business that wants to maximize its potential. Considering the cost of a bad hire can be 1.25 - 1.4 times their base salary, you’ll want to implement some tried and true hiring strategies to avoid this mistake.

While there’s no exact science for the process of hiring employees, there are some best practices that will set your company and new team members up for success.

Here are 9 essential steps for hiring employees that you can implement today.

Step 1: Know The Legal Requirements

To avoid making this a technical legal article, we won’t go into great detail on the legal requirements of hiring employees, especially because they vary by state and company status. But, we’d be remiss not to remind you to get this in order.

Speak with an employment attorney familiar with your company and state’s legal requirements. They’ll advise you on insurance, paperwork, employee contracts, reporting new hires to the state, and much more.

Step 2: Research The Position

Once your legal requirements are out of the way, it’s time to research the position you’re filling. When hiring employees, you want to be deeply familiar with the following:

• Typical skill level required
• Typical experience required
• Educational requirements
• Salary
• Popular job titles and keywords

Take the time to scan job boards, resumes, and salary data to make your job posting competitive. Research helps you identify your selection criteria for hiring new employees so you can choose the best candidate.

Step 3: Write a Killer Job Description

Hiring employees is about attracting leading talent, which requires standout job descriptions. Successful job descriptions accomplish the following:

• Setting expectations
• Making a great first impression of your company
• Establishing a baseline for the role
• Simplifying the candidate’s job search

Glassdoor found that job seekers want employers to provide the following 5 bits of information, with 37% of candidates moving on from a job posting if they can’t find relevant information about a company online:

1. Basic company info
2. Compensation packages
3. Benefits
4. What makes the company stand out
5. Company mission, vision, and values

Check out this article for more detailed information on hiring employees with compelling job descriptions.

Step 4: Source Great Candidates

Even the best job description will fall short if it doesn’t get in front of the right people. Your checklist for hiring employees should include actively sourcing candidates, not simply waiting for applications to roll in.

Hiring new employees can include utilizing your and your employees’ networks to source talent; just be careful about making your growing team too similar. Considering diverse companies experience 2.5 times higher cash flow per worker, diversity is in your best interest.

Broadening your job board postings beyond the basics (LinkedIn, Indeed) to include specific interest groups can help. Such job sites include:

• DiversityWorking
• Black Career Network
• Career Contessa
• Female Executive Search
• Recruit Disability

Lastly, consider working with a recruiter to help source the best candidates when hiring employees. This is particularly useful for senior-level and executive positions where the cost of a bad hire is more significant and good talent can be harder to find.

Jennings Executive specializes in matching companies with leading talent. We’d love to get to know your recruiting needs to help you find the best candidates. Learn more today.

Step 5: Review Applications Properly

Sort applications into three piles: yes, maybe, and no.

Consider eliminating demographic information from resumes – name, gender, address, dates (age) – to help reduce subconscious bias. From there, look for:

• Quantitative evidence of past achievements
• Career progression
• Standout experience
• A clean, error-free resume
• A degree of longevity in past roles – although job-hopping is becoming more common and isn’t necessarily bad.
• Personal connection with the company’s mission

Reach out to candidates, especially the “maybe” ones, and ask questions as needed to learn more about their experiences. From there, schedule phone screens and interviews.

Step 6: Interview and Check References

Hiring employees inevitably involves interviews, but keep this process as short as possible. Top talent doesn’t tolerate being strung along through excessive interviews, so try to keep the process down to 2-3 core conversations with relevant people.

The caliber of interview questions you use will bring out the best (or red flags) in potential new hires. Check out our list of 14 unique interview questions to ask.

Ask all candidates the same questions and score them objectively using an interview rubric. Ask only job-related questions, including some behavioral interview ones, and take thorough notes to reference later.

Lastly, check references to verify what the candidate said.

Step 7: Make an Employment Offer

Once you’ve decided on a candidate – and don’t take more than 2-3 days after the final interview to do so – extend a job offer. 

Reference step 2, research, to make a competitive offer tailored to the candidate. The salary you offer should be commensurate with their experience and open to negotiation. 

Make your benefits packages generous, and be prepared for a transparent conversation with the candidate. 96% of job seekers value company transparency, so this is to your benefit.

Step 8: Notify Rejected Candidates Promptly

Notifying candidates you’ve passed on when hiring employees is the right thing to do. Send an email promptly and thank the candidate for their time, wishing them well in the future. Consider offering feedback on why you passed so they can improve.

Step 9: Utilize a Strong Onboarding Process

Your process of hiring employees doesn’t stop after they accept the offer. 

Considering 70% of employees with “exceptional onboarding experiences” rate their jobs highly and are 2.6 times more likely to be “extremely satisfied” at work, you want to prioritize onboarding.

Utilize the following onboarding best practices when hiring employees to set people up for success:

• Welcome packages
• Involving team members
• Assigning a mentor
• Job shadowing
• Creating a welcoming first day (gifts, free lunch, company-wide message introducing the new employee)
• Slowly introducing new work
• Regular check-ins
• Involving leadership

Collect feedback and regularly evaluate your onboarding process to make it the best it can be.

Best of Luck!

We hope this article helps you on your journey toward hiring employees. Expanding the team will allow your business to reach its full potential when done correctly.

If you’re looking for a recruiting partner, contact Jennings Executive today!

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